Oliver Leith: will o wisp | Manchester Collective

Based on an old English legend, ‘will o wisp’ inhabits a folkloric world.

In this new commission for Manchester Collective and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Oliver Leith creates a buzz of confusion, inviting us to a strange and alluring place. You’ll find woozy, drunken variations in pitch and harmony, strings imitating alpine horns, and sounds which come in and out of focus, but which never definitively arrive at either state.

Leith’s abstract score is like sand through a clasped fist: grasp it with too much force and it runs away, but let it just sit there, and you might feel its presence more deeply.

0:00-4:44 – I. boom push fairy spook
4:44-7:52 – II. rot spook
7:52-12:25 – III. magic
12:25-20:08 – IV. knot face

LINE-UP

Music Director, Violin – Rakhi Singh
Violin – Zoë Beyers, Sini Simonen, Simmy Singh, Magdalena Riedl, Jonathan Martindale, Donald Grant, Lily Whitehurst, Anna Tulchinskaya, Julia Sandros-Alper
Viola – Ruth Gibson, Lucy Nolan, Christine Anderson
Cello – Christian Elliott, Peggy Nolan, Rebecca Knight, Clara Hope Simpson
Double Bass – Hugh Kluger

Film – Broaden
Audio recording and mix – Brendan Williams

Performed at The Holbeck, Leeds in December 2022
Supported by the British Council’s International Collaboration Grants and the RVW Trust

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