Benjamin Clementine

Benjamin Clementine’s story is almost as striking as his music. Born in London, Clementine left for Paris in his late teens and went through a difficult period living without stable housing, performing in the streets and on the Métro while developing a deeply personal style built around piano, poetry and an extraordinary vocal presence. Paris became the place where the artist’s musical identity really took shape, with influences ranging from classical music to chanson and jazz.

That unlikely trajectory led to the debut album At Least for Now, which won the Mercury Prize in 2015, one of the UK’s most prestigious music awards. Since then, Clementine has resisted easy categorisation, describing the work less as conventional songwriting than as a form of expressionism. The music can move from intimate piano passages to dramatic, almost theatrical vocal performances, drawing on poetry, contemporary classical composition, jazz and experimental pop.

At Dubai Opera on 1 November, that combination of voice, piano and stage presence should be particularly powerful in a setting designed for live acoustic performance.