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Neil Gaiman and FourPlay String Quartet

15 January 2024

In the Concert Hall

Contemporary Music

Making their long-awaited return to the Opera House bearing the fruits of over a decades-long collaboration that started at the Graphic Festival, legendary writer Neil Gaiman and renowned string quartet FourPlay present the World Premiere of their ARIA-nominated debut album, Signs of Life.

The master storyteller returns for a night of music and magic

Since their sold-out show at the Sydney Opera House’s Graphic Festival back in 2010, iconic author Neil Gaiman and Australian string quartet FourPlay have become friends and collaborators, reuniting at events around the world to perform their unique, genre-bending mix of live art, music and storytelling. After years of teasing another collaboration, they reunited for 2023’s ARIA-nominated Signs of Life, their groundbreaking first album together. We’re thrilled to announce the World Premiere of Gaiman and FourPlay’s long-awaited return to perform this enchanting new work in the Concert Hall.

One of the most popular and celebrated writers of the modern era, Neil Gaiman has created a body of work that transcends genre, format, and audience, ranging across novels, comics, films, television, theatre and much more. His work includes the landmark comic series The Sandman, Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett), American Gods, The Ocean At the End of the Lane and Coraline.

Described by Gaiman as “the rock band of string quartets”, Australian ensemble FourPlay have been dazzling audiences for more than 20 years with their radical reinventions of pop music and wildly eclectic original material, from covering Radiohead and The Strokes to collaborating with EDM heroes Plaid.

Gaiman and FourPlay’s astonishing multimedia performance of the author’s The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, a collaboration with illustrator Eddie Campbell, sparked a decade of dynamic collaboration, with sold-out shows at New York’s Carnegie Hall and London’s Barbican Centre and a New York Times number one bestselling graphic novel.

This is one experience you won’t soon forget.

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