Lore Lixenberg – ‘a voice artist without borders’

If the idea of feelgood contemporary music sounds like a contradiction in terms, you need to listen to Conlon Nancarrow, the American maverick whose works are so exhilarating and ecstatic they’re like sonic drug-trips, guaranteed to leave you on a high.

Active through the mid-20th century, Nancarrow’s claim to fame was for music so rhythmically complex and so fast that it couldn’t actually be played by human hands – so he wrote it for the “player” piano which operates automatically, driven by holes punched into paper rolls.

Notes fly like bullets, and they take your breath away when you experience them in performance, mixing boogie-woogie, jazz and Afro-drumming with experimental avant-garde techniques. But it could be still more breathtaking to hear them transcribed for human voice – which is what will happen on October 25 when the amazing Lore Lixenberg attempts that very thing at Kings Place.

To call Lixenberg a soprano would be an understatement. By her own description she’s a voice-artist without borders: somebody who boldly goes where others wouldn’t dare. She appears in everything from conventional concerts to stand-up comedy.

She was one of the stars of the now-legendary Jerry Springer: the Opera. And for her Nancarrow spectacular she’ll sing live against the surround-sound of her own pre-recorded voice to recreate the dizzying mechanical brilliance of the piano rolls.

“Nancarrow’s music is pure joy”, she says. “Incredibly complex but totally accessible. I challenge anybody not to smile when they hear it: think Bobby Mcferrin meets Stockhausen on a polyrhythmic intergalactic journey.”

Take-off time is 8pm, £14.50, October 25, Kings Place, York Way, N1 9AG. Booking: 020 7520 1490, kingsplace.co.uk. Bring your own seat-belt