Anyway, he emailed me to say there’s a couple of shows of particular note that are on in Birmingham in the next week or so.

SHAMS: Reykjavik

This is at the MAC from today until Saturday. Aaron saw it in London the other week and says:

It was really great – innovative immersive theatre done with real style which was unusually matched with great content – one man starting a new life in Iceland. It’s only for 25 audience members at a time and you get to wear a nice boiler suit

nOSTalgie: a cabaret

This is on Saturday at the CBSO Centre. The blurb says:

BCMG presents an evening of political songs and new vocal settings, under the brilliant direction of Dominic Muldowney, former Head of Music at the National Theatre

Buy a drink, take a seat and be transported by our cabaret singers, Mary Carewe and Richard Morris, between 1930s Germany and contemporary Britain, during an evening of entertaining delights from both eras

In May, there’s a mini concert for 3-5 year olds and families called Notelets – Shake, Rattle & Roll, Gwilym Simcock Quartet courtesy of Birmingham Jazz, the CBSO cellos, and more. While June serves up the Neil Cowley Trio, Most Simply… Mid Summer, the annual CBSO Young Voices Rock and Pop concert, and El Ultimo Tango. In July, the SHOUT Gospel choir will be performing as part of Birmingham Jazz Festival.

There are also a selection of free events for young people, including Music Maze and Zigzag ensemble.

All in all, there should be something to tickle your fancy or give a go this summer.

Harmonic is a jazz festival that’ll be hosted by a few Birmingham venues – The Yardbird, CBSO Centre and Symphony Hall foyer – from 11- 14 March 2010.

his exploration of the infinity of data between 0 and 1, an abstraction of reality that challenges our perception of the codes present in everyday life

It was quite nice and sunny on Friday afternoon, so stepping off Fazeley Street and walking straight into a pitch black space was a little disconcerting. Especially with no-one else around, the air filled with a high-pitched whine and clicking with the large wall at the far end taken up by a projection of streaming data.

For a second it all felt a little too Poltergeist/Ring-esque – I half expected Sadako to start crawling towards me. That didn’t happen.

What looked like white noise from a distance turned out to be precisely determined; calculated data with it’s own, very particular, order (albeit one I couldn’t make out – but I’m happy to accept it’s there). Interesting, then.

data.tron will be at Ikon Eastside until 8 November, while on 24 November there’ll be an audio-visual concert – datamatics [ver 2.0] – by Ryoji Ikeda at the CBSO Centre, hosted by BCMG.

The work will also form the backdrop of Ikon Eastside’s closing party on 12 November:

Dress code is black and white, lights and atmosphere will be suitably monochrome, music and bands organised in collaboration with Colour

Stan Sulzmann has had a long relationship with Birmingham Jazz and is a Honorary Fellow at Birmingham Conservatoire. So when Stan mentioned that he will be 60 this November, plans were immediately put in place to mark the event in Birmingham with a concert with a small version of The Heritage Orchestra (THO) and with arrangements of Stan’s material by both Jules Buckley and Stan himself.

Stan will be playing with THO’s 13-piece string section plus an extended rhythm section with piano, bass, drums, guitar and percussion. There will also be new material written for the occasion by Stan himself and by THO members Tom Richards and Sam Bullard

Woo-hoo! It’s on Sat 29 Nov at the CBSO Centre and tickets are available NOW!

Info about Stan Sulzmann’s 60th Birthday Celebration is here along with all the other stuff Birmingham Jazz have got on this month (ooh, Portico Quartet on the 28th).