BBC Philharmonic Orchestra x THE BLACK LIGHTS

In Oliver Leith’s music, pleasure and pain overlap, so both feelings are palpable in every gesture. Pearly, goldy, woody, bloody, or Abundance for orchestra begins with the best of intentions: “classical, thick, like marble moulding, beautiful, regal.” But formalities quickly get out of hand; everything at Leith’s party droops, fuzzes and deflates.

The psychedelic, blissful minimalism of Terry Riley’s In C flirts with darkness before being dragged back into the light. As a lover of John Coltrane and Miles Davis, a believer in the power of collective music-making, and a seeker of transcendence, In C distilled Riley’s thinking into something pure and strong, and became minimal music’s first mainstream hit.

Searing pain sits at the heart of John Adams’s Harmonielehre. Spread across forty minutes, Harmonielehre is both Adams’s love letter to the symphonic tradition, and a happy marriage of lyrical late Romantic expression with his own glittering minimalism.

Into this heady mix comes a world premiere of new work by Mica Levi, a creator of music with hidden, unerring depths known for their exploratory film scores and cross-genre collaborations.

The show is presented as part of THE BLACK LIGHTS; a new festival of contemporary art taking place across multiple venues in Blackpool 26th - 28th June 2026.

New work by Mica Levi has been co-commissioned by BBC Radio 3, BBC Philharmonic and THE BLACK LIGHTS.

This show will be recorded for future broadcast on BBC Radio 3.