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Filomena Campus
Theatralia
TNC MUSIC INTERVIEW | 2026
Filomena Campus Quartet
Theatralia
Album Launch
PizzaExpress Live (Chelsea)
20 Oct | Doors 18:30 | Start 20:00
Images © Daniele Franchi
Album Artwork by Gina Tondo
Dsign by Soulfish
Sept, 17, 2026
Filomena Campus returns to The Pheasantry to launch her new album, Theatralia (33Jazz Records), with her all-star band: Steve Lodder, (piano), Rod Youngs (drums), and Charlie Pyne (double bass). The set features original multilingual compositions co-written with Lodder and Pyne, including a solo vocal interpretation of a Jobim classic. Blending jazz, improvisation, and spoken word, the performance unfolds as a vibrant and theatrical musical journey.
Campus draws audiences into the worlds of visionary women artists such as Niki de Saint Phalle and Franca Rame, the dreamlike realm of Shakespeare’s Queen Mab, the mythical Janas of Sardinian folklore, and the irresistible voices of the Sirens in Homer’s Odyssey.
You can pre-order the first single, E Mi Drommia here.
Hello Filomena, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with The New Current. How does it feel to release your new album, Theatralia?
I am over the moon! It’s been a very long process. These songs have grown over the years with my longtime friends and collaborators, and absolutely phenomenal musicians, Steve Lodder, Charlie Pyne and Rod Youngs. We’ve woven and shaped them together, often through live performance and in dialogue with our audiences. I can’t wait finally to have the physical album in our hands.
Your album launch will take place at PizzaExpress Chelsea in October. What does it mean to share your new music with your audiences?
It’s the reason why I do this job. There is a moment of absolute magic in sharing the stage with my band and going on a musical journey with the audience. They are always an active part of the show. It becomes more than a concert: it’s a performance where music meets poetry, laughter, masks, storytelling and theatre.
Do you have any traditions or superstitions before going on stage?
I never eat before a concert, but drink plenty of water. I also need some time by myself, in silence, to do my vocal warm-up or just to relax. Make-up and getting dressed have become part of the ritual too, and, whenever possible, sharing some jokes with the band. But the most important ritual comes from my theatre background. In Italy we never go on stage without saying three magic words together: merda, merda, merda! I’ve shared that tradition with the band for a long time now.
Can you tell me about the story behind the album cover for Theatralia?
The figure on the cover is actually a portrait of me called Filomena, created by Sardinian artist Gina Tondo. I fell in love with it, and somehow it became a sort of avatar for me. There is something theatrical, playful and slightly mysterious about her that embodies the world of Theatralia. It also feels very appropriate that the visual identity of the album comes from another woman artist, because there is a kind of female genealogy running through the whole project.
What is the story behind the name Theatralia?
I first used the name when I directed a play in Sardinia. It was suggested by a dear friend. At that time she was my English Literature professor at university. The name stayed with me and later became the name of my theatre ensemble here in London. Now it has become the title of the album, so in a way it has travelled with me through different stages of my artistic life.
For me Theatralia represents a shared space of art, creativity, irreverence and fun, bringing together the three “hats” I have always worn: music, theatre and university. With this album I finally found a way to let all three become entangled and create something unique and eclectic.
How did the Filomena Campus Quartet come about?
I founded the quartet in 2010 with Dudley Phillips and Steve Lodder. We worked with several wonderful drummers until Rod Youngs joined the band. I immediately felt he was the one, not only because of his incredible talent, but because of the amazing person and friend he is.
Dudley then became very busy with his many projects and one day, when he couldn’t make a gig, he suggested Charlie Pyne as a dep. Something inside me immediately screamed that we desperately needed more female presence in the band. Dudley, who is also a very dear friend to me, will always be part of our musical family. In fact, we’ve talked about a future composition involving two basses. And he is still very much present in our concerts through his incredible arrangement of a famous Italian song, which never fails to bring tears to quite a few eyes.
But having Charlie, who is such a talented bass player, vocalist and composer, really resonated with my feminist soul. I’ve always loved vocal harmonies. When I first started singing professionally in Sardinia, I performed for years in a vocal trio, so Charlie’s arrival opened up all sorts of possibilities. I feel the quartet is now exactly what it should be.
You co-wrote some of the new songs with Steve Lodder and Charlie Pyne; what was that experience like?
Working with Steve feels like home. His sound is poetic but at the same time dynamic and full of energy. I simply adore his playing and his compositions, and writing lyrics to his music comes very naturally to me. On stage he always finds a way of making the music sound new, unexpected and totally engaging.
Working with Charlie has brought something different into my musical life, and it has genuinely made a difference to me. For many years I was the only woman in the quartet, and having another woman on stage has changed the chemistry of the band in ways I hadn’t anticipated.
For this album I asked Charlie to write something inspired by the feminist research I had been doing during my PhD. She immediately understood what I was looking for. When I heard her music, it became Song of a Siren, inspired partly by Italian philosopher Adriana Cavarero’s work on female vocality and the voice of the Sirens, and partly by a poem by the late Italian author Stefano Benni. Charlie then took some of those ideas somewhere else entirely and composed the powerful Daughters of Water.
Of all the songs you’ve written and performed over the years, is there one that really holds a special place in your heart?
Yes, the opening song of the album, E Mi Drommia. I immediately fell in love with Steve’s music and started exploring melodies over this incredible chord sequence, inspired by a Sardinian poem. The piece continued to grow over the years, and I experimented with my vocal effects to create something that has become almost a feminist manifesto for me, not by chance there are two solos in the song, Charlie’s and mine. It’s about female genealogy, but it’s also a Sardinian lullaby, a fable passed from one generation of women to another. It takes me back to my childhood in Sardinia.
The reaction to your music has been amazing, with audiences and critics connecting with your unique approach. What has it meant to you to get this type of recognition for your music?
As an Italian/British who has lived in Britain for twenty-five years, sometimes I feel slightly in-between my two countries, and finding your place as an artist isn’t always easy.
I feel enormously grateful to London, and particularly to the jazz community here, where I have always felt welcomed and encouraged to grow, study and become a better musician and artist.
The response from audiences, and some of the reviews we have received recently, have genuinely moved me. I hope this album continues that journey and allows the music to travel further internationally too.
What did being awarded Cavaliera of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic mean to you?
It was completely unexpected and moving. To be awarded Cavaliera of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, roughly the Italian equivalent of being made a Dame in the UK, was an extraordinary honour. My life and work have developed in Britain for so many years, so receiving such an important Italian honour here in London felt particularly meaningful.
What drew you to jazz?
In Macomer, the small town in Sardinia where I grew up, there wasn’t much jazz. There were no music schools, hardly any concerts, not even a music shop.
As a teenager I discovered Pat Metheny thanks to a cassette a friend from Milan gave me. I started digging into this music and something about it completely resonated with me. I had always loved singing, but there was nowhere to study music where I lived, and I was desperate to leave and discover the world. When I moved to Cagliari for university, I started singing live with a vocal trio, taking contemporary dance classes and later attending theatre workshops.
Then I went to a jazz concert featuring two extraordinary musicians whom, much later in life, I would be lucky enough to sing with: Paolo Fresu and Antonello Salis. Of course, I had no idea then. In 1998 I attended the only jazz seminar available in Sardinia at the time, organised by Paolo Fresu. It changed my life. Eventually I left my job teaching English language and literature in high school, jumped into the unknown...and here I am!
Is there any particular period in jazz you’d love to perform in? For me, it would be 1930s Paris or 1950s London.
I’m fascinated by Modernism and the artistic experimentation around the 1920s and 30s, Joyce, Beckett, T. S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Surrealism, all those extraordinary artistic experiments happening at the same time. I would love to be sitting in a Paris café or a London gathering surrounded by artists experimenting across different forms. But I’d also be tempted by the 1970s, the feminist struggles, the political energy and all those extraordinary women artists challenging established forms.
If you could perform with a jazz artist, living or passed, who would it be?
Thelonious Monk. The onliest Monk.
What have been some of your most memorable collaborations?
I love creating bridges and collaborations. It has always been part of who I am, maybe sometimes too much.
I’ve loved working with British musicians who over the years have become like family and are among the reasons I chose to make my life here: Orphy Robinson, Rowland Sutherland and Cleveland Watkiss. I adore them both as friends and as artists.
Collaborations with Italian musicians such as Paolo Fresu and Antonello Salis have also been very special.
And then there was the late Stefano Benni, Italian satirist, novelist, playwright and a true poet. We worked together on several projects, including Monk Misterioso and Italy vs England. Parts of that history have found their way into Theatralia, including Stefano’s own recorded voice. Hearing him in the middle of the concert is always an incredibly moving moment for me.
I’ve also been very fortunate to perform with musicians including Steve Williamson and Evan Parker, as well as Laura Cole, Maggie Nicols, and to record with the wonderful Kenny Wheeler on Scaramouche, my album with fab guitarist Giorgio Serci.
Does your theatre background help inform your approach to writing and performing?
Totally, and that is really the reason behind the title Theatralia.
For years I sometimes felt inadequate in each of the three fields I worked in, jazz, theatre and academia, simply because I seemed incapable of choosing one and committing one hundred per cent of myself to it. I just can’t.
Eventually I stopped seeing that as a problem.
I’ve just completed a PhD on feminist theatre and performance; recently I directed a theatre production at Riverside Studios with a fabulous cast of female performers; and now I’m releasing an album that brings all these different aspects of my artistic life together. On stage they become one performance. I think Theatralia is me finally embracing the fact that I don’t need to separate them.
Sticking with theatre for a moment, what was it about Franca Rame, her work and legacy, that influenced you so much?
Franca Rame was one of the great European theatre practitioners, although for many years her work was overshadowed by that of her husband and artistic partner, Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo.
Her work introduced me to feminism and feminist theatre, but later, when I had the privilege of knowing her personally, she also became a friend and mentor. She influenced not only my work but, in many ways, my life.
What fascinates me is the way women artists can speak to one another across generations and across completely different art forms. Franca is part of a female genealogy that runs through Theatralia: from the Sardinian women and stories of my childhood to Niki de Saint Phalle, the Iranian women of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, Gina Tondo, Charlie Pyne and the women artists I continue to encounter through my work.
"Theatralia is an invitation into a world where music becomes entangled with literature, theatre, poetry and improvisation."
Do you have a particular quote from Franca Rame that you really like?
I have many. One that immediately comes to mind expresses something that was fundamental to both Rame and Fo’s approach to theatre:
“A theatre, a literature, an art form that does not speak of its own time is irrelevant.”
I think that idea has stayed with me throughout my own work, and it is what I teach my students, especially in the times we are living in.
If you could listen to just one song for the rest of your life, what song would you choose?
Aahhh, that is a very difficult one! One that comes immediately to mind is Um Choro Feliz by the wonderful Portuguese artists Maria João and Mário Laginha.
What does jazz mean to you?
Once you embrace jazz, your whole mindset changes. You learn to improvise, which to me is one of the greatest and most democratic expressions of freedom.
You have to listen deeply and carefully, support the other people on stage with you, explore unknown paths and ideas, learn to balance your creativity with structures, timing, and harmony. It’s about taking risks; it is about collaboration. Everyone has the chance to express themselves. We sing and play together, but each of us has our own voice, and together we create the voice of the band.
To me, that is life. It’s pure joy.
And finally, what would you like your listeners to take away from Theatralia?
First of all, I hope they enjoy the music! But I also hope they’ll be curious to go beyond it and explore the lyrics and the stories behind the songs.
Theatralia is an invitation into a world where music becomes entangled with literature, theatre, poetry and improvisation. Literature has always been part of my musical world, so I’m particularly delighted that the wonderful novelist Jonathan Coe has written the introductory notes for the album booklet. It feels very special to have his words opening the door into Theatralia.
There is also a political dimension to the album, not party politics, but politics in the broader sense of how we live together and understand the world around us. Hannah Arendt wrote about what she called the “space of appearance”: a public space that comes into being when people gather together through speech and action. In some ways, that is what I hope Theatralia can create in performance: a shared space between musicians and audience, where different voices can coexist, where we listen to and see each other, question things, laugh, imagine and improvise together.
And when the concert is over and we all go home, hopefully something of it stays with us.