Bold Tendencies, the groundbreaking arts organisation based in Peckham Multi-Storey car park, has premiered Oliver Leith's large-scale 'processional work' Garland. The hour-long piece, commissioned by Bold Tendencies, features a supermarket trolley piled with domestic castoffs and a Steinway concert grand piano, typical of the organisation's equivocal, self-conscious semi-gentrification.
Leith's work begins with hymn-like piano chords and a whistling descant, soon joined by two tubas from the expanded 12 Ensemble. A community choir, the Bold Chorus, and professional vocal ensemble Exaudi process slowly across the stage, initially smiling and chattering before standing to join the pseudo-hymn. Later, grim-faced, they trail thin ropes of bells, blow through straws, spin whirly tubes, and drag planks of wood and lengths of aluminium tubing.
The beguiling sounds counterpoint the often voluptuous tone of 12 Ensemble's strings, at close quarters and as the procession continues out of sight behind the audience. One memorable passage feels like being in a bell tower as changes are rung, the entire concrete structure made wildly resonant. Solos from soprano Patricia Auchterlonie, a dramatised switch of conductors, and a horse steered reluctantly across the stage add to the spectacle.
Charlie Fox's text is largely inaudible, its narrative lost. Instead, Garland is an extravagantly immersive staging of sound in motion, full of memorable moments despite its elusive storyline.
