My Mixtape: Manchester Collective

A new kind of arts organisation, one built for a fresh and diverse musical world, Manchester Collective does more than pull together concerts, they create intimate and intense experiences, inspired by the music they love. 

Aiming to open up classical music to everyone, they have commissioned major works by artists including Edmund Finnis, Hannah Peel, Lyra Pramuk, and Laurence Osborn, and performed not only in concert halls, but also in warehouses and factory spaces.

Now, the Southbank Centre can be added to that list, with Manchester Collective joining forces with us for a year-long residency that will bring a number of performances to our site, beginning on 2 October with Voice of the Whale.

To give you a flavour of what to expect from Manchester Collective, we asked their chief executive and co-founder, Adam Szabo (pictured below with co-founder Rakhi Singh) to put together a special mixtape for us.

‘One of the real delights of programming is allowing your mind to draw strange connections between pieces of music that really don’t have that much in common, at least, on the surface. This playlist really started out with George Crumb’s ‘Vox Balaenae’, and then grew out into all sorts of gnarly directions.

‘We have water music: Alex Grove’s ‘Curved Form: St Endellion’, inspired by a rainy view of the sea from the top of a Cornish cliff-edge; Debussy’s enduring ‘Sunken Cathedral’; and of course, Crumb’s own ‘Sea Nocturne’ from Voice of the Whale.

‘There’s nature music – our own ‘Prelude’ from Manchester Collective’s debut EP Recreation, featuring a very seasonal violin concerto by Vivaldi, as well as some Bach that somehow found its way into the recording.

‘And of course, there’s music that explores the kind of darkness that George Crumb is so obsessed by, from his ‘Black Angels’ for electric string quartet, through to some very nocturnal music by Kelly Moran and Clark. We even snuck some Schubert in there (‘Death and the Maiden’… how could we not?). Enjoy. It’s all good stuff.’

‘A lot of this music happens in the shadows – it’s full of beauty, but none of it is sunny music exactly!’

Adam Szabo, co-founder and chief executive of Manchester Collective