While we get on with planning our 2026 season, may we recommend the following local events featuring names you’ll be familiar with…
An Evening with Philip Sheppard
7th February 2026
United Reform Church, Malmesbury
What happens when you give a cello to someone who thinks outside the box? You get Philip Sheppard – and trust us, you’ve never heard anything like this. Philip doesn’t just play the cello; he transforms it into an entire orchestra through ingenious live looping techniques, building sonic landscapes in real-time with nothing but his instrument and a few misused guitar pedals. But here’s the twist – he’s also one of the most unexpectedly hilarious storytellers you’ll encounter on a concert stage.
This is the composer who soundtracked over 80 films and video games (including the multimillion selling Detroit Become Human), produced Jimmy Page at the Beijing Olympics closing ceremony, and somehow found time to jam with everyone from David Bowie and Scott Walker to Queens of the Stone Age and Odesza – yes, he was the cellist bringing down the house during those three sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden in 2024.
His trophy cabinet reads like a musical hall of fame: Game Audio Guild awards, Sundance Audience Award, The Webby Award, Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Music for lifetime achievement, and membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars). But ask Philip about any of this, and he’ll probably tell you a ridiculous story about how he ended up owning the North Korean National Anthem.
He was a longtime collaborator with his dear friend, jazz legend Keith Tippett, and has worked with icons like Jarvis Cocker, Keanu Reeves, Abdullah Ibrahim, Juliette Binoche, Sia, Suzanne Vega, and currently serves as Artist in Residence for XPRIZE – because life isn’t busy enough.
This isn’t your grandmother’s classical concert (though she’d probably love it too). This is what happens when virtuosity meets comedy club meets experimental laboratory – and it all somehow makes perfect, beautiful sense when Philip takes the stage.
Making her Stroud debut, Elvin Brandhi is an improvising lyricist, producer, and sound artist hailing from Bridgend, Wales. Constructing deeply creative electronic music via an innovative approach to sound design and sampling.
A prolific artist with an eye-watering track record, not only as part of the father-daughter duo ‘Yeah You’ but also in collaborations alongside the likes of Daniel Blumberg, Lord Spikeheart, Nadah El Shazly, Mariam Rezaei, Sara Persico, and many more.
A live show that is, in equal measure, wholly unique as it is electric.
Support on the night comes from improvising saxophonist and composer, Rachel Musson, delivering a rare, solo, pedal-infused performance. A heavyweight in improvised music with a breathtaking and transcendent approach to liveness.
As well as multidisciplinary artist enys mottet – A live entity whose music warps industrial sound design with autotune melancholy – making sense of visual vignettes in real time.
Saturday 3 January 2026
7:00 PM – 10:00 PM
Centre for Science and Art
13 Lansdown, Stroud,
Gloucestershire GL5 1BB
2026 Wayout Westport Season Sneak Preview
Full details to be published soon, but tickets are on sale now…
January 20th – Marino/Grigg/Hitchens/Kelly
Tickets
February 24th – Edwards/Vicente/Trilla
Tickets
March 17th – The Oxford Improvisers
Tickets
April 23rd – Keravac/ Theo May & Friends
Tickets
May 16th – Celebrated Soft Machine guitarist John Etheridge
Tickets
May 19th – Helson/Anstey/Langford
Tickets
June 19th – COIMS
Tickets