On 18 and 19 September Bold Tendencies will premiere Oliver Leith’s Garland, an hour-long orchestral and choral processional that will represent one of his largest-scale statements to date. The work draws together many of Leith’s most important collaborators, including GBSR Duo, 12 Ensemble, EXAUDI, conductors Jack Sheen and Naomi Woo, and soprano Patricia Auchterlonia. They are joined by Musarc and The Bold Chorus, with the piece also featuring choral refrains written by Charlie Fox and costumes designed by Ellen Poppy Hill.
Garland is a spectacular procession of sound, music, and singing, using an atypical orchestra of 32 string and 16 brass players, plus percussion, semi-chorus, and massed voices. Leith imagines “a busy village, observed like an exhibition, tiny repetitive activities everywhere”, the uncanny atmosphere pivoting between “fear and beauty”. The work sees the chorus engage in congregational singing and chanting, dragging metal poles and shopping trolleys with them; the scene also features a bandstand, a car (from which foley sound effects issue), bicycles, and a horse.
The work, which oscillates between cacophony and euphony, eventually coalesces around soprano Patricia Auchterlonie – “either screaming or soaring above the procession”. The community, Leith notes, “are all trying to make something happen together, a murmuring spectacle, geared towards moving themselves.”
The piece is supported by the Oliver Leith Commissioning Circle: Brian Boylan, John & Emma Donnelly, Bob Shaw, Lukas Zueger-Knecht and those who wish to remain anonymous. In September 2024 Leith curated an orchestral portrait concert for Bold Tendencies, featuring Cartoon Sun, Pearly, Goldy, Woody, Bloody, or Abundance and Honey Siren, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Naomi Woo. In 2023 GBSR Duo presented Leith’s good day good day bad day bad day at the Peckham venue.
Garland’s two conductors – Jack Sheen and Naomi Woo - return to Leith’s music in December 2025 at the Royal Opera, where they share the 16-performance revival run of Leith’s debut chamber opera Last Days at the Linbury Theatre. The performances, starting on 5 December, will also see them joined by Auchterlonie (singing the role of the Superfan), 12 Ensemble and GBSR Duo, all of whom premiered the work in 2022.
GBSR Duo and 12 Ensemble turn to Leith’s music again in September, joined by guitarist Sean Shibe at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 27 September. Together they present Doom and the Dooms, Leith’s 35-minute reimagining of a rock band “from an alternative universe” playing a surreal live set; listen to their 2025 performance of the piece from the Norfolk & Norwich Festival on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show.