What does America look like from somewhere else?
To mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, singer, writer and art historian David McAlmont presents an illustrated talk on America’s extraordinary presence in our lives — built around a series of his own original digital collages.
Moving between memory, history and visual culture, he traces the ways American ideas, images and sounds have travelled across the world — shaping generations far beyond America’s borders, and quietly becoming part of our own story. Part memoir, part cultural archaeology, part visual essay.
A talk, then the room.
A spoken-word evening — no band, no setlist. You know the voice; this time he’s talking. This is Field Notes, the thinking salon: not a lecture, but an idea received whole, then taken apart in company.
You’ll leave still thinking.
David McAlmont
Singer, writer and art historian. The voice of Yes — McAlmont & Butler’s 1995 landmark — who went back to school to read the History of Western Art & Architecture, and now reads culture itself: what it carries, and where it came from.
McAlmont
David McAlmont was…
In residence.
Three Saturday nights. Three bodies of work. One of Britain's most extraordinary voices, returning each month to a room of fifty-five.
Voice · Song · Story
Each evening a distinct show — a different lens, a different catalogue, the same extraordinary artist. Not a tribute. Not impersonation. McAlmont making a personal case for the music that shaped him — and reshaping how you hear it.
All three evenings found their fifty-five. Thank you to everyone who came up. The list below is for when David returns.
A personal map of discovery. How one artist comes to another's work late, slowly, and then all at once. From The Laughing Gnome to Diamond Dogs and beyond.
The artist turns the lens on himself. A career spent navigating soul, pop, jazz, art and academia. The songs, the collaborations, the questions that never quite resolve.
A challenge to the lazy consensus. Madonna's catalogue reclaimed as bold, emotionally complex, intelligent songwriting. Stripped of spectacle. Recentred around voice.
Three months. Three shows. One voice.
The room remembers.
Step in. Come up. Be part of the story.
Circle & Star Theatre, Hampstead
28 Heath Street, London NW3 6TE
Hampstead Station · Northern Line