On 16 May Oliver Leith’s Doom and the Dooms, a 35-minute work for electric guitar and chamber ensemble of eleven players, appears at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, performed by Sean Shibe, GBSR Duo, and 12 Ensemble.
Doom and the Dooms imagines a fictional band performing their greatest hits. As one might expect, the electric guitar is the frontman, though sometimes falls back to offer accompanying music for hazy string chorales and mark tree melodies. 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 players whistle along to melodies. “The guitar has cultural baggage”, Leith notes, “so I’m embracing it, rather than avoiding it. Its baggage is material.” It was premiered by the same forces at Wigmore Hall in June 2024. Shibe et al. present the work on 27 September at the Queen Elizabeth Hall as part of the guitarist’s residency at the Southbank Centre.
GBSR Duo and 12 Ensemble – longstanding Leith collaborators, integral to the creation of his debut chamber opera Last Days and string orchestra work Honey Siren – will be part of 118 performers premiering his grandest concert work to date in September at London’s Bold Tendencies. Garland promises a spectacular procession of sound, music and singing, drawing on EXAUDI (who premiered Leith’s Hallelujah amen in 2024), soprano Patricia Auchterlonie and a mixed amateur chorus; the choral refrains are written by Charlie Fox. 32 string and 16 brass players unite with a large battery of percussion and sampler keyboards to form an atypical orchestra, enveloping the audience in sound as the performers circulate. The choral forces are augmented by a horse, bicycles, car and other pedestrian detritus ‘played’ to create noise and rhythm.
The performances on 18 and 19 September will be conducted by Naomi Woo and Jack Sheen; Woo led the Philharmonia Orchestra in a Leith portrait concert at Bold Tendencies in 2024; the concert series has previously hosted GBSR Duo for a performance of good day good day bad day bad day.