Manchester Collective: Neon

As the sun starts to dip below the horizon, our cities change. One by one, streetlights and neon signs flicker into life. This nocturnal world, this neon world, is a place of mystery where anything is possible. These tunes are darkly swaggering, dirty, and sly. A pair of Manchester Collective commissions lie at the heart of the programme, which evokes the intrigue and momentum of sleepless nights and crowded streets. Hannah Peel’s titular Neon is inspired by light and life, fusing layers of live electronics and field recordings from Shinjuku Station in Tokyo with the acoustic performances of the collective. In her first major chamber commission, Berlin-based Lyra Pramuk presents a sensual world premiere, a meditation on feelings of disconnection and grief. Elsewhere, David Lang’s underhand masterpiece Cheating, Lying, Stealing paints a picture of everything that can be wrong with a composer, and Julius Eastman’s much maligned Joy Boy presents a totally unique musical world of ‘ticker-tape music’. Fast. Slow. Fast. Keep up. Don’t be late.