- Oliver Leith (b. 1990): Last Days, Prologue:
- 1 Leith: Last Days, Prologue 03:18
- 2 Leith: Last Days, Prologue, Scene 1: Blake in the Wilderness 04:21
- 3 Leith: Last Days, Prologue, Scene 2: Home 01:22
- 4 Leith: Last Days, Prologue, Scene 3: Wisdom of Birds 06:21
- Last Days, Act 1:
- 5 Leith: Last Days, Act 1, Scene 1: Trip Calls 01:11
- 6 Leith: Last Days, Act 1, Scene 2: A Package 02:37
- 7 Leith: Last Days, Act 1, Scene 3: Blake Listens to Opera 04:51
- 8 Leith: Last Days, Act 1, Scene 4: Confusion 05:02
- 9 Leith: Last Days, Act 1, Scene 5: Friberg and Friberg 01:39
- 10 Leith: Last Days, Act 1, Scene 6: He Said 03:40
- 11 Leith: Last Days, Act 1, Scene 7: Chorus of Things 07:13
- 12 Leith: Last Days, Act 1, Scene 8: The Magician Story 05:31
- Last Days, Act 2:
- 13 Leith: Last Days, Act 2, Scene 1: Trip Calls Again 01:29
- 14 Leith: Last Days, Act 2, Scene 2: His Understudy 02:44
- 15 Leith: Last Days, Act 2, Scene 3: The Party 06:07
- 16 Leith: Last Days, Act 2, Scene 4: The Super-fan 04:33
- 17 Leith: Last Days, Act 2, Scene 5: Blake cleans the stage 04:01
- Last Days, Act 3:
- 18 Leith: Last Days, Act 3, Scene 1: Blake in the Wilderness 01:25
- 19 Leith: Last Days, Act 3, Scene 2: Trip Calls Again Again 00:53
- 20 Leith: Last Days, Act 3, Scene 3: P.I. in the Wilderness 01:58
- 21 Leith: Last Days, Act 3, Scene 4: The Magic Trick 01:45
- 22 Leith: Last Days, Act 3, Scene 5: Intervention 04:01
- 23 Leith: Last Days, Act 3, Scene 6: Abandoning Blake 03:30
- 24 Leith: Last Days, Act 3, Scene 7: Voyage 06:41
- 25 Leith: Last Days, Act 3, Scene 8: Death 05:33
- 26 Leith: Last Days, Act 3, Scene 8b: Death Part II 03:59
Info for Oliver Leith: Last Days
The opera tells the story of Blake, a musician who has recently escaped rehab to return home. But he is haunted by objects, visitors and memories distracting him from his true purpose – self-destruction.
In her West End debut, French actor Agathe Rousselle takes on the non-singing role of Blake. She is joined on stage by sopranos Patricia Auchterlonie as Superfan and Mimi Doulton as Delivery Driver and Housemate, mezzo-soprano Kate Howden as Mormon and Housemate, tenor Seumas Begg as Mormon and Housemate, bass Sion Goronwy as Groundskeeper and Private Investigator, baritone Edmund Danon as Housemate, and actor Henry Jenkinson in the non-singing role of Magician. Auchterlonie, Doulton and Goronwy are all alumni of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
Composer Leith, who describes himself as a huge Nirvana fan, commented: “Everything in the world of Last Days is musical – from cereal bowls to bin bags – except for Blake, our lead, who simply mumbles. The music mumbles and murmurs too in a bittersweet haze.
“The pit score is written for my long-time collaborators, 12 Ensemble (strings), George Barton (percussion) and Siwan Rhys (piano/synthesiser), together creating a very particular quality – trying to make the opera sound like it might look.”
Librettist Copson added: “I wrote Last Days as an existential farce. A tragedy infused with both the absurdities and banality of death and life. A battleground of the contradictions which form the world around us playing out in the maze of an opera. I hope it’s a total assault on the senses.”
"Conducted by Jack Sheen, the orchestra combines the strings of 12 Ensemble with the percussion and keyboards of GBSR Duo, George Barton and Siwan Rhys to provide textures that range from dense dark harmonies to single instrumental lines, which are enhanced by sampled sounds ranging from faux birdsong to breakfast cereal being poured into a bowl. In the final minutes of the opera, though, all that’s left is a bleak processional, in a work that, for all its beauties, otherwise keeps its characters strictly at arm’s length." (The Guardian)
Mimi Doulton, soprano
Kate Howden, mezzo-soprano
Patricia Auchterlonie, soprano
Edmund Danon, baritone
Seumas Begg, tenor
Sion Goronwy, bass
Jimmy Holliday, bass
Agathe Rousselle, vocals
Caroline Polachek, vocals
Tom Kelly, vocals
Sean Shibe, guitar
Cole Morrison, double bass
GBSR Duo
12 Ensemble
Jack Sheen, conductor
The 12 Ensemble
is a pioneering un-conducted string orchestra.
Evolving from a close-knit group of like-minded musicians into one of Europe's leading string orchestras, the 12 Ensemble has developed a critically-acclaimed reputation as an influential collective, reaching audiences worldwide with powerful musical experiences.
Flexible in size but always playing without conductor, the core formation brings together twelve of London’s leading string players. Formed in 2012 by Artistic Directors Eloisa-Fleur Thom & Max Ruisi, the 12 Ensemble has become synonymous with innovative programming, combining their dedication to core- classical repertoire with exceptional new commissions and collaborators from a broad range of artistic spheres.
Artists-in-Residence at the Wigmore Hall for 2023-25, the 12 Ensemble are in- demand internationally, performing at leading venues including the Barbican, Royal Albert Hall, Berlin Philharmonie and Elbphilharmonie. The group have also made multiple appearances at leading festivals worldwide, including performing Schubert’s Death & the Maiden at the BBC Proms plus invitations to the U.S and South Korea, as well as multiple broadcasts on BBC TV, Sky Arts and international radio.
Alongside their commitment to world-class performances of core-classical repertoire, the group have always championed new music and regularly commission and collaborate with leading composers. Their 2020 commission Honey Siren from composer Oliver Leith won an Ivor Novello award for Best Chamber Composition, and 2022 saw the 12 Ensemble join forces with Leith once again at the Royal Opera House for his acclaimed opera Last Days, based on the film by Gus Van Sant depicting the final days of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain (★★★★★ Independent). The group have also recently commissioned works from Edmund Finnis, Kate Whitley and Laurence Osborn.
The ensemble has also collaborated closely with Radiohead guitarist and composer Jonny Greenwood (recording his soundtracks to the Oscar-nominated films 'Spencer' and ‘The Power of the Dog’), and have a long-established relationship with composer Max Richter, including performances with him at the Paris Philharmonie and the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt. The ensemble have also worked with artists such as Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Laura Marling, The National, Ichiko Aoba, Elena Tonra and Chrissie Hynde. The group feature onscreen in Andrew Dominik’s 2021 film ‘This Much I know To Be True’, exploring the collaborations of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.
The 12 ensemble have released two highly critically-acclaimed albums, Resurrection and Death and the Maiden (★★★★★ BBC Music Magazine). 2023 saw the ensemble appear on soprano Mary Bevan’s award-winning album Visions Illuminées, featuring Britten's Les Illuminations. 2024 will see the release of the ensemble’s third album Metamorphosis, featuring works by Vivier, Strauss, Leith and Finnis.
Jack Sheen
is a conductor and composer from Manchester, England. His music spans orchestral works to performance and sound installations, and he regularly works with leading orchestras, ensembles, galleries, and artists on concert and operatic performances, commissions, and interdisciplinary projects. Especially at home within late-romantic, modern, and contemporary music, Jack brings his compositional insight to interpretations of core repertoire that have been highly praised.
Jack has conducted orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra, Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, and Royal Northern Sinfonia, as well as ensembles such as London Sinfonietta, Bit20, Apartment House, EXAUDI, 12 Ensemble, FontanaMix, and Ensemble 10/10. This season, he will make his debut with the BBC Symphony and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
Equally at home in the opera house, 2024 will see Jack conduct a new production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress with English Touring Opera. Last season Jack made his Royal Opera House debut conducting the world premiere of Oliver Leith’s Last Days to great acclaim, and returned to Tanglewood Music Centre as a Guest Artist conducting Sir George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence.
As a composer, Jack has had concert works commissioned by orchestras, ensembles and organisations such as the LSO, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Symphony and Scottish Symphony Orchestras, London Sinfonietta, BBC Radio 3, Aldeburgh Festival, Apartment House, EXAUDI, Manchester Camerata, Aurora Orchestra, and Les Métaboles, alongside large-scale site-specific installations by Venice Biennale Musica and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Casa de Serralves (Porto), V&A Museum, Camden Art Centre, Holden Gallery (Manchester) and PINK (Manchester). These latter works disperse musicians and loudspeakers around large spaces and across extended time-frames, in which the performers’ real-time decisions, the audience’s movement, and the space itself become unpredictable forces on the composition.
Recent projects include Lag, a 15’ semi-spatialised orchestral piece commissioned by BBC SSO and Ilan Volkov for Tectonics Festival 2024; Press, a 50’ piano quintet commissioned by Wigmore Hall and Apartment House; Croon Harvest, a performance-installation for voices, field recordings and white noise, developed for Camden Arts Centre and released via The Trilogy Tapes; and a new 50’ performance-installation commissioned by Ensemble Mosaik for Silent Green (Berlin).
Awards include Ernst von Siemens Foundation Progetto Positano Residency (2024), PRS Composers Fund (2021), Arts Foundation Fellowship (finalist, 2020), Rovaumont Voix Nouvelle Composition Prize (2018), Royal Philharmonic Prize for Composition (2016), an RNCM Gold Medal (2012) and BBC Young Composer of the Year (2011). In 2019 he was a Jerwood Fellow with Manchester International Festival.
His music has been broadcast internationally, and released on labels included The Trilogy Tapes, SN Variations, and NMC.
Jack is one of the curators behind London Contemporary Music Festival (‘the capital’s most ambitious and adventurous festival of new music’, The Guardian), and is Co-Founder the LCMF Orchestra. He has worked with many of the world’s leading composers and artists, collaborating with figures ranging from Thomas Adès, Elaine Mitchener and Chaya Czernowin to Matthew Barney and Cerith Wyn Evans.
Oliver Leith
is a London based composer making acoustic music, electronic music and video.
Commissions have been given by groups such as London Sinfonietta, Festival Aix-en-Provence, the London Symphony Orchestra, Tanglewood Music Festival, Heidelberg festival, Musicon, Homo Novus/Valmiera theatre and St John Smith’s Square.
Collaborators and performers have included Apartment House, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Ives Ensemble, Exaudi, 12 Ensemble, Plus Minus, Mimitabu, Philharmonia Orchestra, An Assembly, Trio Catch, GBSR Duo, Loré Lixenberg, Explore Ensemble, Matthew Herbert and John Harle.
Performances have taken place at the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Hall, Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, Royal Opera House, Aldeburgh, Huddersfield (HCMF), LSO St Luke’s, St Martin-in-the-fields, Horniman Museum, The Forge, CNSDMP (Paris), RCM, GSMD, Milton Court, Howard Assembly Room, The Place, Handel House, Mexican Embassy (UK and Tokyo), Liszt academy (Budapest), Maison du Canada (Paris), Howard Assembly and Leeds Lieder. Visual art collaborations are exhibited at The Museum of Western Australia and recorded music is played on BBC Radio 3 and NTS radio.
Oliver was the recipient of an Ivor Novello award in 2020, British Composer Award in 2016 and of a Royal Philharmonic Composition prize in 2014.
This album contains no booklet.