A thousand-year-long composition turns 25
As of midday today (GMT), New Year’s Eve, Longplayer has been playing continuously, without repetition, for 25 years.
Playing since the cusp of the new millennium, at midnight on 31 December 1999, the composition will continue without repetition (if circumstances permit it to) until the last moments of 2999, when it will return to the point at which it first began – and begin again.
We want to take this opportunity to thank you, our community of listeners, for helping to keep Longplayer playing. We also invite you to celebrate Longplayer’s 25th birthday by joining us in a year-long international programme of events, collaborations and initiatives reflecting the work’s unique articulation of time and its dimensions, and the investment in the long-term that Longplayer continues to inspire.
At present, Longplayer is being performed mostly by computers, and can be heard, playing continuously online (via live transmission and an iOS app) and in various locations around the world, including Yorkshire Sculpture Park and London’s only lighthouse, overlooking the Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf. From January 2025, Longplayer will also be playing from a listening post on the rooftop of La Casa Encendida, a cultural centre in Madrid.
Originally conceived as a way of articulating time and its dimensions, Longplayer has become much more than that. As a catalyst for creative engagement with long-term thinking, it connects an international community of listeners and custodians to futures (and increasingly, a past) beyond their own lifetimes. Over the last 25 years, Longplayer has provided a uniquely accessible and eloquent platform for projects and initiatives connected by their shared ambition to push beyond the reactive short-termism of our present age. These have included conversations between leading figures from culture, science and beyond, technological iteration, conceptual artworks, musical performances and community gatherings on a local, national and international scale.
The engine of much of this activity has been experimentation with the Longplayer score itself. Despite its current reliance on computers, it has been sung, released on vinyl, encoded through light and beamed across the river, and realised live in rare durational performances.
The next of these will take place at the Roundhouse on Saturday 5 April 2025, when a 1000-minute section of its score, as written for that particular time and date, will be performed on a large orchestral instrument comprised of 234 singing bowls, arranged in six concentric rings and played by shifts of six to twelve people at any one time, reading from a graphic score. We would be delighted if you would join us for this rare performance, to celebrate Longplayer reaching a quarter century. For booking and information see here.
A community through time
As Longplayer completes its first quarter century, it has become a laboratory for urgent questions relating to stewardship, intergenerational connection, the future of music, and adaptability to technological and environmental change. At this milestone, we want to thank the thousands of listeners around the world who tune into Longplayer for purposes of pleasure, relaxation, reflection and utility.
Jem Finer, Longplayer’s composer, said:
‘Twenty-five years is really nothing in Longplayer’s scheme of things though it’s starting to feel more substantial to me. People have come and, sadly, people have gone, while some who were young children back in 2000 are now looking after Longplayer. This feels right, that a community through time is emerging, that where Longplayer once felt only future facing it’s now accruing a past. I send great thanks to all those who have supported Longplayer and to the many people who have worked so inspiringly and generously to get it to this point. I hope we can all find some light and peace in the year ahead.’
