On 3 October Wild Up and MOCA present the US premiere of Oliver’s Leith’s choral-orchestral epic Garland, as part of the Democracy Sessions festival. The hour-long work, which receives two performances, is staged at the Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The performance will be conducted by Christopher Rountree and Naomi Woo, and directed by Rountree with Faye Driscoll, with designs by Brian Sea. A community choir will be joined by the vocal consort Hex, with Anna Schubert as the soprano soloist.
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 enigmatic ritual reaches an ambivalent climax around the soprano soloist – “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.”
As in previous works by Leith ordinary and mundane objects – bottles, shopping trolleys, lengths of scaffolding, chains – are transformed into musical ones, to uncanny, enchanting effect. This process is the culmination of Leith’s fascination with rediscovering everyday objects and drawing out their inner capacities for music. These are complemented by orchestral writing of sweeping power and expressive intensity. At points some of the orchestral musicians rise from their seats to join the procession, adding to the panoramic character of the work. Leith discusses Garland in The Times with Richard Morrison here.
Naomi Woo previously conducted the celebrated world premiere and revival of Garland in London and part of the revival of Leith’s opera Last Days at the Royal Opera in 2025; she also conducted a Leith portrait concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra in 2024, curated by the composer. Commissioned by Bold Tendencies, Garland drew together many of Leith’s most important collaborators, including GBSR Duo, 12 Ensemble, conductors Jack Sheen, and soprano Patricia Auchterlonie, all of whom appeared in Last Days.