Freya Waley Cohen
©Photo: Patrick Allen

FREYA WALEY-COHEN’S ​‘SPELL BOOK’ RECEIVES WORLD PREMIERE AT THE BARBICAN

26/1/2024

Freya Waley-Cohen​’s song cycle Spell Book receives its first complete performance on 1 February at the Barbican Centre. Soprano Héloïse Werner and mezzo sopranos Katie Bray and Fleur Barron are joined by Manchester Collective in a concert exclusively dedicated to Waley-Cohen’s works. Within the song cycle, Spell Book Volume 1 and Volume 2 (2020) are followed by the premiere of two new works; spell for change and spell for the witch’s hammer.

The dramatic song cycle sets a series of ​“spells” taken from Scottish poet Rebecca Tamás’s 2019 collection WITCH. The programme also features Waley-Cohen’s chamber work Naiad, first performed in 2019 at the BBC Proms for a concert dedicated to Oliver Knussen.

“Tamás’ witch is full of desire and power: she doesn’t think about the same things that other people are thinking about, but she is neither bad nor good — she exists outside that framework.”

Freya Waley-Cohen

“In each spell I’ve looked for the moment or method of transformation. Sometimes this is a specific moment of change within the song, sometimes it’s a sense of accumulation, and sometimes a shift of perspective.”

Freya Waley-Cohen