Filomena Campus launches the album at The Pheasantry, PizzaExpress Live Chelsea on 20th October with her all-star quartet: long-time collaborators Steve Lodder on piano and keyboards, CharliePyne on double bass and voice, and Rod Youngs on drums.

Acclaimed novelist Jonathan Coe has written the sleeve notes for THEATRALIA, an album in which music and literature are closely entangled.

Running through THEATRALIA is an exploration of female genealogy and vocality: voices inherited and rediscovered, silenced and reclaimed. The songs encounter women and female figures across different times
and cultures, from the Janas of Sardinian tradition and Homer’s Sirens to pioneering Italian theatre-maker Franca Rame and the radical art of Niki de Saint Phalle. The song SHE reflects on women, migration and displacement, while the album cover features Filomena, a portrait by Sardinian artist Gina Tondo.

The late Italian writer and satirist Stefano Benni, a close friend and creative collaborator of Campus, is an
important presence on the album. His fusion of satire, comedy and political engagement has deeply shaped Campus’s approach to performance. Song of a Siren opens with words from Benni’s Sagrademari. At the same time, Franca, based on his poem dedicated to Rame, translated and adapted by Campus and set to music by Lodder, incorporates Benni’s own voice captured during a live performance with Campus and the quartet in London.

Theatralia is also the name of the theatre company that Campus founded in London in 2003. The album grows from the same idea of Theatralia as a shared creative space where different artistic languages coexist. Its geography is rooted in a bridge between Sardinia and London while reaching beyond both: E Mi Drommia draws on Sardinian poetry and childhood stories passed from grandmother to granddaughter; Unsettled (Status) is an affectionate and bittersweet love letter to London; and Shanghai to Nanjing was born from a journey through China.

At the heart of THEATRALIA is the long-standing musical relationship between Campus, Lodder, Pyne and Youngs. Lodder composed most of the album’s music, with two compositions by Pyne, alongside songs originating in Campus’ earlier Sardinian collaborations with pianist Paolo Carrus and the late guitarist Massimo Ferra. Years of performing together have allowed the quartet to continually reshape the music through improvisation, interaction and exchange with their audiences.

Reviews and Feedback

"The four of you have created something quite unique and I can't wait to hear the results on the new album!" Jonathan Coe

“Her scat is literally something unique, with a distinctly modernist approach.” — Jazz in Europe

“Campus seemed to improvise from deep within, as if she threw herself fearlessly into the unknown, taking the audience with her.” — LondonJazz

“On stage Campus is a true shaman of music.” — ANSA

“Attending a Filomena Campus concert is always a musical joy, but the latest went beyond all expectations… a truly memorable experience, capable of enriching those who live it.” — Nicol Dynes

“The concerts of the Filomena Campus Quartet are pure jazz dream material… a real triumph.” — Candace Allen

“A Filomena Campus concert is like spending an evening with a friend… an experience full of elegance and emotion.” — John Ingham

“A magnetic performer… an unforgettable experience.” — Alessandra Rizzo

JAZZWISE review (March 2026) by Alice Hill

Filomena Campus Quartet bring theatrical colour to the Vortex

The vocalist brings her multi-lingual, multi-faceted music for a night of fantastical and
political music making

Fusing jazz, theatre, and literature is a feat very few UK-based performers attempt, yet bandleader, vocalist, theatre practitioner, radio host, and academic researcher Filomena Campus blends the creative arts with ease. She has collaborated with improvisation legends Evan Parker, Orphy Robinson, and Kenny Wheeler, and is established in London as a unique and sought-after performer.
Campus invokes her Sardinian heritage by including Sardinian poetry and performing in five European languages: English, Italian, Sardinian, Portuguese (for just one song: an a cappella cover of 'Águas de Março'), and Genovese.

The Filomena Campus Quartet was originally formed in 2010; while pianist Steve Lodder and drummer Rod Youngs have remained in the band, Charlie Pyne is now the band's double bassist. (..) Throughout the performance, the "power of female vocality" was a central theme. The quartet performed songs dedicated to artist Niki de Saint Phalle; theatre actress Franca Rame; "naughty fairies" from Sardinian folklore; Shakespeare's fairy midwife, Queen Mab; women migrants; sirens; and Philomena, the Nightingale in Greek mythology. Bassist Pyne's song 'Daughters of Water' built on the quartet's feminist rhetoric, involving satirical, humorous, and lamenting elements. Across this array of feminine representations, Campus' theatrical presence allowed her to morph in and out of each story. The vocalist transformed into Queen Mab, the fairy midwife in Romeo and Juliet, in an almost operatic sense by wearing a mask, waving her arms as if they were delicate wings (...). Similarly, in 'Song of a Siren', her initial spoken word ascended into technically impeccable portamentos, projected so strongly that the microphone was held far away from her face.

Healing, inspiring, cathartic, comedic, dramatic, political, fantastical, the Filomena Campus Quartet is truly irreplicable in the British jazz scene. The Vortex gig was in part an album preview, as the band are currently in the process of
recording their next LP, which is eagerly awaited.