Speech Muse is a concert series that invites wordsmiths and musicians to play with words. For this first iteration of 2026, we are joined by Charles Verni, Imani Mason Jordan, Phil Minton, and Beatrice Ferreira. Plus, entertainment from Reuben <3
Doors 7pm
Tickets £14
Charles Verni is a musician based in London. Their work uses humour and genre experiments as a means to try and come to terms with popular song, digital audio, and the voice. Their latest album “I’m Crazy” was released by Vienna-based Plot Toy on CD and digital, with other projects including “I Was Today Years Old” and the radio play "Not That Deep.” Recent live performances have taken place at Scaling, Malmö, and Hillside, Berlin, with radio highlights including mixes and original audio for NTS and BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Imani Mason Jordan (b. 1992, London) is an interdisciplinary writer, artist, editor and curator interested in poetics and performance. Imani has written numerous articles, reviews, essays, poems, plays and love letters, some of which they have published. Since 2016, they have developed a keen interest in poetics, oration, experimentation and practices of reading aloud, from which they have synthesised a performance practice that centres writing and collaboration as well as using the speaking voice as an instrument. After completing their MA in Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths in 2019, their pamphlet OBJECTS WHO TESTIFY was published by Taylor Le Melle at PSS. Imani is currently working on their debut poetry collection, THE BOOK OF SLASH POEMS and their solo performance work TREAD/MILL. Recent performance/audio projects include: EARTHLY ACCOMPLICE (2023) with Felix Taylor at MACBA, Barcelona & Crosness Pumping Station, London; ATLANTIC RAILTON: LIVE (2021) with Ain Bailey at Serpentine Pavilion, London & WELCOME NOTE IN A WELCOME SPEECH (2019) with Libita Sibungu at Gasworks, London & Spike Island, Bristol. Imani is Director of PAPERFLESH PUBLISHING, a multi-genre small press and editing studio for the intellectually rigorous, politically minded black writer. Imani has curated various exhibitions and public programmes alongside Rabz Lansiquot as Languid Hands (2019-) and SYFU (2018).
Phil Minton comes from Torquay in the UK. He played trumpet and sang with the Mike Westbrook Band in the early 60s- then in dance and rock bands in Europe for the later part of the decade. He returned to England in 1971, rejoining Westbrook and was involved in many of his projects until the mid 1980′s. For most of the last forty years, Phil has been working as a improvising singer in groups, orchestras and situations, in various locations worldwide. Some composers have written pieces that especially employ his extended vocal techniques and improvisations. He has a quartet with Veryan Weston, Roger Turner and John Butcher and ongoing duos with all the above. Phil also sings with many other musicians including Audrey Chen, with whom in the last ten years, he has performed worldwide. Since the eighties, his Feral Choir, where he voice-conducts workshops and concerts for anyone who wants to sing, has performed in over twenty countries. More recently, Phil has on going Duos with Carl Ludwig Hübsch, Guylaine Cosseron, Hugh Medcalfe and Szilard Mezei.
Beatrice Ferreira is a Canadian American composer and string improvisor currently based in London. With a style described as ‘atmospheric, surreal... [and] occasionally unnerving - perhaps better to say haunted’ (Spectrum Culture), she draws upon mimetic materials to destabilize our perceptions of extramusical sound. With over a decade of experience writing for solo, concert, and theatre settings, Beatrice has established herself in the contemporary music scene as a skilled yet playful voice. Her works have premiered at Southbank Centre, Snape Maltings, Barbican Centre, and National Sawdust. In addition to her work as a composer, she is an experienced string improvisor. Past work has included collaboration with Montreal projects Alex Rand and The Weather Holds. Beatrice holds an M.A. from Guildhall School of Music and Drama in Opera Making and Writing, and a B.Mus. in Composition from McGill University’s Schulich School of Music. She has been named finalist in SOCAN (2021), BMI (2020), and ASCAP Morton Gould (2018) Young Composer Awards.
Reuben is funny, energetic, kind, knowledgeable, chatty, understanding, hard working, and giggly.