Critics have lauded Oliver’s Leith’s Garland, an hour-long choral and orchestral processional that represents one of his largest-scale statements to date, which premiered on 18 and 19 September at Bold Tendencies.
The work drew 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 were 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. A spectacular sequence of sound, music, and singing, Leith imagines “a busy village, observed like an exhibition, tiny repetitive activities everywhere”, the uncanny atmosphere pivoting between “fear and beauty”. Leith discusses Garland in The Times with Richard Morrison here.
Garland was commissioned by Bold Tendencies and realised with exceptional support from the Oliver Leith Commissioning Circle: Brian Boylan, John and Emma Donnelly, The Glass Castle Foundation, Svetlana Marich & Photonia Ltd., Bob Shaw, Lukas Zueger-Knecht, and those who wish to remain anonymous.
[Garland] has already attracted inquiries from Europe…Leith catches the imagination with his long-breathed, deeply felt works… Garland is unlike anything but itself. The idea, loosely, is of an annual communal event, a festival, with a quality of ritual… Leith’s music at first appears simple…it starts with a piano playing in E flat. It sounds solid, like a school hymn, but the pulse keeps shifting and the pianist, Siwan Rhys of GBSR Duo, is required to whistle to herself while playing…Glassy, perfectly tuned string chords are likewise pushed to microtonal distortions until they disintegrate…[an] unquantifiable endeavour… . Fox’s short text is poetic and allusive…As for Edward the horse…his placid arrival...proved an unexpected and climactic consolation.
The Observer (Fiona Maddocks) 28 September 2025
The music opened with simple piano chords, but in the blink of an eye grew opulent and hazy, teeming with choppy strings and soft brass textures. Much of it moved downwards, both in mood and in melody, radiating a sweetly sorrowful atmosphere…It became impossible to track everything happening at once – and that was the beauty of Leith’s dramaturgical counterpoint…The whole thing looked and sounded utterly romantic…The music is charismatic and accessible…the result is thrilling.
Bachtrack (Marat Ingeldeev) 19 September 2025
Full of memorable moments…beguiling sounds counterpointed the often voluptuous tone of 12 Ensemble’s strings...One memorable passage felt like being in a bell tower as the changes are rung, the entire concrete structure made wildly, ecstatically resonant…an extravagantly immersive staging of sound in motion.
The Guardian (Flora Willson) 19 September 2025
A second world premiere from Leith followed hot on the heels of Garland on 27 September from Anastasia Kobekina at a sold-out Wigmore Hall. The Folly on Dirge Hill is a 12-minute suite for solo cello commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society through the generous support of an anonymous donor. It comprises five short movements: ‘Sham Ruin’, ‘Jealous Wall’, ‘Under hollow something’, ‘Cherub Grotto’ and ‘The Folly at Dirge Hill’.
“They are named after follies or folly features”, Leith says of the work. “Faux castles with no innards and scars etched onto them. Ornamental in function but love songs to aged and ancient places. Grottos filled with stalactites, made with dripping concrete rather than time. Ruins built with fresh bricks. Familiar grand buildings made from something uncanny…These structures and these miniatures might appear as if they have always existed but are built from something new - skewed and artificially aged.”
GBSR Duo and 12 Ensemble also returned to Leith’s music on 27 September, presenting Doom and the Dooms at the Queen Elizabeth Hall with guitarist Sean Shibe. The 35-minute imagines 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.