Rome

A solo concert by Rome, the project of Jerome Reuter from Luxembourg, at Union Chapel in London, with Of the Wand and the Moon opening the evening. The event forms part of a European tour staged in churches and historic sites.

Rome is the musical project of Jerome Reuter, who comes from Luxembourg. Its catalogue includes a series of concept albums that return to history, philosophy, spiritual searching and faith, and the project has long examined both existential conflicts and different ways of expressing the sacred. For this tour, Rome performs as a solo act, drawing on the twin albums The Tower and The Hierophant alongside early songs seldom played live. The arrangements are described as stripped back and minimalist, with a folk-based approach.

The evening opens with a solo set by Of the Wand and the Moon, the name under which Kim Larsen performs. The music is marked by melancholy and a twilight mood, and Larsen has increasingly drawn on singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 1970s, including Lee Hazlewood, Leonard Cohen and Serge Gainsbourg. The opening set covers several phases of this project's work.

The tour takes the music to churches, chapels, cloisters, castles and other historic sites across Europe. The London concert is held at Union Chapel, a religious building on Compton Terrace. The programme is tied to the idea of a shared European heritage, with faith, doubt and the transcendent at its centre, and it suits the places of worship in which it is presented.