Ecstatic Dances: Manchester

Programme
To include Clark New Work (World Premiere)

Creative Team
Paul Clark Composer
Poul Høxbro Pipes and Drums
Manchester Collective String Quintet

About The Show

Poul Høxbro has been called “the great man of small instruments”. He’s an endlessly fascinating and inspiring musician - a Danish master of ancient flutes and bells, of bones and drums. As soon as we met him, we knew we had to work with him.

While we were building the show, we had a moment when we realised that this combination of instruments has literally never been heard before. The set that we are presenting is all new - terrifyingly, ink-barely-dry new. Ancient music, brought vividly to life for 21st century ears.
Rounding out our artistic team for the project is composer Paul Clark, who will be writing new music for the show. Paul makes his Manchester Collective debut fresh off the back of a hugely successful collaboration with Renee Fleming and Ben Whishaw at The Shed in New York. We’re thrilled to have him along for the ride.

Full disclosure - “Ecstatic Dances” feels scary for us. New work is always frightening, mostly because until you start making it, you never really know what you’re going to end up with. Fortunately, we’re not particularly fond of being comfortable. Come join us on tour. Let’s get risky.

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.