Enescu Octet

Programme
Bach Cello Suite No. 1 in G MajorPanufnik ModlitwaTenney KoanTavener The LambEnescu String Octet in C Major, Op. 7
Creative Team
Manchester Collective String Octet

About The Show
Quite simply, we’ve put a bunch of our favourite music into this show. Rather than sticking to a single theme or composer, in this programme we get the chance to show off our musical range - to flex our muscles as we get close and personal with some of the greatest music ever written.
This show takes us from focused and intense works for just one instrument (Bach’s G Major Cello Suite), to the huge combined string sound of Enescu’s String Octet; from the shape-shifting Koan by James Tenney to the haunting Modlitwa, a musical prayer by father-daughter compositional team, Andrzej and Roxanna Panufnik.
For the last time this season, we’ll be touring our trademark “radical human experience through live music” to concert halls, warehouses, clubs, and factories all over the UK.
In the words of Stephen Pritchard (Observer/Guardian/Bachtrack): “Catch it if you can - the future has arrived.”

Manchester Collective
Manchester Collective are changing the way people experience live music. Since their first set of “powerful, moving, & extraordinary” shows in 2017 (Yorkshire Post), the work of the Collective has expanded at breakneck speed. They now play in concert halls, warehouses, and factory spaces in 18 cities across Europe and the UK, performing a combination of cutting edge new music, classical masterpieces, and staged theatrical work to a hungry, new audience.
Recent performing highlights include international concert debuts in Holland, Switzerland, and Northern Ireland; appearances at the Southbank Centre in London to perform The Centre is Everywhere, a major new commission by Edmund Finnis; and a critically acclaimed tour of Pierrot Lunaire, a staged production of Arnold Schoenberg’s masterpiece featuring a newly commissioned English libretto by David Pountney, and presented by BBC 6 Music’s Elizabeth Alker.
New music has always been of vital importance to the Collective - in 2019/20 they premiere major new works by Paul Clark, Erland Cooper, and Alex Groves. The current season will also see the Collective mount their largest ever international tour - a revival of 2018’s critically acclaimed Sirocco, featuring South African cellist Abel Selaocoe.
Manchester Collective’s work has been featured by the BBC on an ongoing basis, most recently in the form of a one hour “supercut” of exceptional live performances from around the UK, broadcast on Radio 3. Other recordings have appeared on Classic FM, NTS Radio, Melodic Distraction, and on Tender Symmetry, released on the Erased Tapes label in 2018.