LEO DOULTON

Role: Writer 

Performance: Wigmore Hall, London (2017)

Performance (Flying): USA (2018)

 

One of the highlights of my time at Guildhall was getting to abandon my main composer for a bit and work on pieces for the Wigmore Hall. It meant I got to meet and work with some fabulous new composers - Ben Smith, Philip Golub, and Miguel Picciochi.

 

For Ben, I wrote something based on Beckett, which he then spliced and reinterpreted by adding bits of Anglo-Saxon poetry, and his own text.

 

For Philip, I wrote loads of texts, which ended up with him choosing ‘Flying’ - a piece I wrote about performing standup comedy. His first question was whether it was about suicide.

 

For Miguel, we discovered a mutual love of The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. Since we had two singers, we decided to write something based on the story of The Twins, who spoke to each other through prime numbers. I spent a lot of time on Wikipedia’s list of prime numbers, working out which ones sounded best.

 

It was great to work with so many people, and work in so many different styles for one project. All of the composers had different ideas about what they wanted in a text, and I liked adapting to their needs.

 

It was also fun to, during a bit of dead time in rehearsal, do a standup set on the Wigmore Hall stage.