The 23/24 concert season has been a packed one for Oliver Leith (b. 1990). His debut chamber opera Last Days received its US premiere from the LA Philharmonic at Walt Disney Hall, alongside national premieres for his string works Honey Siren (in France and Japan) and will o wisp (from the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra). It also saw the creation of several new works: Cartoon Sun (for the Hallé orchestra and Thomas Adès), Doom and the Dooms (for Sean Shibe, GBSR Duo, and 12 Ensemble, at Wigmore Hall) and a new choral work for EXAUDI, Hallelujah amen – part of a specially curated concert from the composer that showcased his idiosyncratic and playful musical imagination.
It’s an imagination foregrounded in works like Dream Horse (2018), for soprano, bass, and chamber orchestra, which sees the heartfelt and surreal collide. Its eclectic text reflects the scope of the London-based composer’s imagination – by turns sweet and subversive – drawing on the 1923 John Wayne Western musical Riders of Destiny, a list of horses named ‘Dream _____’ and Wordsworth’s The Tables Turned; the 15-minute work was premiered by Thomas Adès at the Tanglewood Festival.
Leith’s Cartoon Sun, premiered in April 2024, is 14-minute work inspired by bells in their numerous forms, making use of pitched and unpitched varieties in varied sizes and shapes – church bells, cowbells, tubular bells, and sleigh bells, emerging from imperceptible quiet and ending in radiant sunshine. It will be performed again as part of a Leith portrait concert from the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Naomi Woo, at London’s Bold Tendencies in September 2024.
It appears there alongside Honey Siren: an award-winning 17-minute string piece that blurs the boundary of quotidian non-musical and musical sound. Cast in three movements, it imagines wailing sirens, both joyful and disconcerting by turns. Twisting pitch and harmony through a carefully calibrated microtonal blur, Leith creates music both entrancing and enticing as well as sticky and claustrophobic. It is an apt reflection of Caroline Potter’s description in Tempo of Leith’s music as an “accidental still life” that “makes the everyday strange, and the strange everyday”.
This idea is especially exemplified in Leith’s acclaimed debut chamber opera Last Days - in an interview with the New York Times Leith noted that he wanted to write a stage work “about somebody putting their bins out.” The 90-minute piece, with a text by Matt Copson, is based on Gus Van Sant’s 2005 film about a rockstar’s flight from rehab. In a self-destructive spiral he encounters his agent, a Superfan, housemates, a pair of Mormons, private detective and groundskeeper. Actor Agathe Rousselle played the non-singing role of Blake – a nearly-mute mumbling figure in a world where cereal bowls, glass bottles, and DHL delivery drivers have their own music.
It received its US premiere in February 2024 with the LA Philharmonic and GBSR Duo, conducted by Thomas Adès, following its premiere at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre in autumn 2022 – both sell-out runs. The world premiere recording on Platoon was released in June 2024 – listen here.
The score – “detuned, unhinged and unearthly” (Evening Standard) – integrates recorded and found sounds, such as a recording of Montana cattle auctioneer voices Blake’s agent and a Sacred Harp hymn that intermingles with voices onstage and in the pit. It features recording of an Italian verismo-style aria written for the indie pop sensation Caroline Polachek, “heartbreakingly freighted with nostalgia and elegy” (The Times). The world premiere production was directed by Copson and Anna Morrissey, with sound design by Sound Intermedia. Costumes were designed by Parisian couturier Balenciaga, previewed in Vogue.
Leith’s “bleak and beautiful” music (the Guardian) has been performed by Royal Northern Sinfonia, London Sinfonietta, Manchester Collective, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Trio Catch and Explore Ensemble, and been heard at the BBC Proms, Tanglewood Music Centre, Wigmore Hall, Aix Festival, Transit Festival, the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Riga’s White Night Festival and Liszt Academy (Budapest).
The figure of the mumbling rock star resurfaced in Doom and the Dooms, Leith’s latest large-scale work, premiered in June 2024 at Wigmore Hall. The 35-minute work for electric guitar, keyboard, strings and percussion imagines a fictional band performing their greatest hits. As one might expect, the electric guitar is the frontman.
The band’s songs have a bittersweet aspect, with titles such as All I ever wanted, Javelin shearwater and My Horse Named Dream. Melting, melancholy harmonies sit alongside fast, virtuosic passagework for guitar, as well as the blurry microtonal string writing emblematic of Leith’s work. Leith composes the idiosyncrasies of a live gig into the work – the band mumble to introduce their songs, and the keyboard player whistles along to melodies. “The guitar has cultural baggage”, Leith notes, “so I’m embracing it, rather than avoiding it. Its baggage is material.”
Leith’s works are available for Australian premieres – please contact promotion@fabermusic.com for more information.