Fresh from the success of her critically lauded album, Varmints (2016), Scottish composer Anna Meredith embarks on an immersive urban performance project as part of this year’s Manchester international festival.
In Music for a Busy City, you and five other composers have written works that will be played in situ at different places around Manchester. Where’s your spot?
It’s a windowless pathway that runs from one side of the [Arndale] shopping centre to the other and in the middle has entrances to Marks & Spencer and Selfridges opposite each other, with lifts.
Doesn’t sound like you got the most glamorous one ...
I chose it! I like spots that give you their own ideas without having to impose anything on them. I was sitting watching the lifts going up and down for about half an hour and thought, ‘I could watch these all day – what if they had sound attached to them, and if the sounds were like different voices?’
How will that translate into music?
I was thinking of four-part choral inventions, soprano-alto-tenor-bass, stuff like Bach’s chord writing where one part might change by one note and it completely changes the scale and harmony of the whole thing. That’s like the lifts – they can be completely static, all at the same level, and then one changes and the balance is all disrupted. I’m thinking it’ll be pure, electronic sine-like tones that will bend in pitch as you go up and down floors. It’s about using information generated by people using functional things to affect something musical. I also thought it might be good for the shops, if people come in to play about in the lifts. ‘Oh look, here’s home furnishings ... I didn’t know there was a cafe up here’.
What else are you up to over the summer?
Loads of UK and European festivals, which will be great. And I’m starting to think about my second album. I’ve got a gig at Oval Space in London in November and my plan is to have a couple of new things to do by then. I’ve also been talking to people about film work as well as some bigger orchestral commissions.
Soundtracking feature films?
Yeah, we did our first band tour in the States in March, and while I was in LA I met some film agents. It seems that it’s quite a last-minute process. Someone will say, ‘Can you do this tomorrow?’ and you’ll just have to drop everything, or pass on it. I write really quickly, so I’m up for trying it. I don’t think I’d do a very good job of romcom … I’d obviously be up for a creepy atmospheric arty film but also why not a massive blockbuster? It’s totally my favourite kind of film. Explosions, Bruce Willis in a vest, robots …
In the meantime, have you suffered many ‘lift music’ jokes from your composer friends yet?
You know what, I literally haven’t had one. It’s surely just a matter of time.
- Music for a Busy City by Anna Meredith is at various locations, 30 June-16 July
- The Guardian is a media partner of Manchester international festival.
