"...a cannonball on a tight trampoline..." Oliver Leith
The Manchester Collective will be taking the second movement of Oliver Leith’s Honey Siren for string ensemble across the UK, beginning on March 31 at Future Yard in Birkenhead, and continuing to eight venues including the Southbank Centre, Bridgewater Hall and St. George's Bristol. The tour is titled The Oracle, featuring South African cellist and composer Abel Selaocoe and featuring music by Igor Stravinsky, Jean-Phillipe Rameau and Mica Levi. 12 Ensemble, who commissioned the piece, will also perform Honey Siren - complete - at Village Underground in Shoreditch on March 25, as part of the London Handel Festival.
Leith writes that Honey Siren should be “dripping, hazy, globular, oozing”. The 17-minute piece expresses Leith’s fascination with unconventional tunings and evocative sonorities. The bending pitches of the piece “are not notes ‘in-between’ but the same pitches with a curved/sharper edge, like sniffing vinegar or a cannonball on a tight trampoline.”
Full details of the tour can be found here