Samantha’s response? An intimate, glacial orchestral piece, performed by one Manchester’s leading musical ensembles.

Wintering is a special commission by the Wigmore Hall in London and sees the Manchester Collective’s string quartet join The Marian Consort vocal ensemble on a national two-week tour. Part-meditation, part-monologue, Wintering channels the near-universal sense of melancholy that settles over the year’s end, mulling it over through strings and voice before freeing it once again. The performance is a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of holiday shoppers outside, and a gentle reminder of the value of rest and retreat.

Wintering is much like a cold wind – deeply felt, but impossible to catch hold of. The music sweeps between low, threatening notes that evoke the feeling of looking into a gaping abyss to sounds that would be unobtrusive at heaven’s gate. In Vista, Wintering’s opener, such is the harmony between vocals and violin that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

Breezing forward, Wintering’s fourth number – ‘To Do: Do Less’ – marked itself as a particular standout piece. A duet of spoken word and guided meditation in song, To Do: Do Less struck as an intimate look inside an anxious, but universally relatable mind. “Collect prescription, find a babysitter, laundry, living room, groceries…” echoes in the silence, only to be answered by gentle lyrics of breaths returning to a natural rhythm. Particular applause is reserved for The Marian Consort’s soprano Caroline Halls, who was effortless moving between both roles in her performance.

In the performance, Wintering is enveloped by four other pieces from various composers across history. Orlando di Lassus’ 1570 piece Prophetiae Sibyllarum (‘Sybylline Oracles’, or ‘Sibylline Prophecies’) opens the concert to a dazed, stuttering prologue – a masterclass in key changes that looks back on the sibyls of Ancient Greece, a group of pagan prophetesses said to have foreseen Christ. The National Anthems from David Lang follows behind, bearing vulnerable anxieties of the uncertainty of freedom, and Jonathan Dove’s Out of Time uses strings alone to sketch a memory of a much-missed husband.

With Wintering continuing the introspection after the interval, the performance rounds off with Andrzej Panufnik’s Song to the Virgin Mary. As Polish society collapsed with 1939’s Nazi invasion, Panufnik’s response was to form a boogie-woogie-playing piano duo with fellow composer Witold Lutosławski, touring Warsaw’s bars under increasing Soviet censorship before making a daring escape to Britain in 1954. Song to the Virgin Mary was conceived during his exile in fond memory of the country he left behind: an abstract love letter to, as he described, “the naïve beauty of the religious folk art of Poland”.

The themes of rest, reflection, and the surrender of productivity are as resonant now as they ought to be the rest of the year. In a landscape of rising traditionalism, conformity, and financial slashing for the arts, it’s a real treat to see a personal, more conceptual performance not only included, but tightly embraced in concert halls across the country. Wintering is best enjoyed with a programme in hand to truly appreciate the stories behind each piece. A delight to experience.

Wintering was performed at Stoller Hall on the 27 November 2025 and tours until December 5.

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Featuring The Marian Consort vocal ensemble and the Manchester Collective’s string quartet, the Wintering tour comes to Stoller Hall on 27 November for an evening of healing, restoration, and clarity.

Wintering is based on the novel of the same name by Katherine May. What stood out to you about this book?

Samantha: “Yes. I’ve always found winter really hard, so I just always struggle, particularly in January and February. I know lots of people feel that way. And then I discovered this book. I read it two winters ago and it just opened up another way of framing it, and this notion that you don’t always have to be busy and doing things. There’s a lot of value in rest and retreat, and it was kind of another way of thinking about winter.

“There’s also a lot of comparison with the natural world, so how animals hibernate and how there are lots of ways in which the natural world and the animal world work in sync with this season and don’t try to fight it, whereas sometimes us human beings, we do try to fight it. We think we need to be as productive in the winter as we are in the summer and the spring”.

Do you think that’s something you’ve taken to heart outside your music ?

Samantha: “Yeah, absolutely!
“I think there’s a lot of pressure in modern urban life where we’re bombarded in various ways through social media. How we compare ourselves to other people, and that we need to be busy, and doing, and productive. And it’s not always the healthiest way to be”.

As a composer, what was the process behind Wintering? Was it a lot of experimentation or was it quite intuitive?

Samantha: “Both, really. It’s a bit of both.
“The text of the piece I wrote myself, so it’s kind of my own response to the book. I spent a lot of time thinking about what text I wanted to use and how it would suit me.
The things in the book that I think have been most helpful to me in a musical sense are the way she evokes wintry landscapes – and I’ve tried to embody that in the music; this feeling of looking out onto a frozen landscape, but also the kind of internal landscape we have, of a busy mind that can’t rest. So there’s those two kinds of landscapes or soundscapes that then manifest in the music”.

What are you hoping people will get out of the performance?

Samantha: “I’m hoping, in some ways, parts of it will provide a moment of calm. The music is a lot of the time quite slow and still. So there’s that, but it’s also just a time to reflect on how we engage with winter.

“The text is part guided meditation, part inner monologue. So every now and again the soprano will pipe up: she’s got a spoken part in that movement, and it’s sort of her inner monologue, as if she’s trying to meditate. We hear this meditation text. She’s trying to meditate, but a kind of internal chatter in her mind takes over. So it’s kind of a bit of both. It’s sort of internal and external”.

What was it that got you into music in the first place?

Samantha: “I got into composition quite late. It didn’t really occur to me as a thing I could do.

“I learned the piano, the flute, and I sang as a child, so I did all of that, and I really enjoyed playing, but I was quite a nervous performer. It didn’t really suit me. I went on to study music at university, and it was then at university that I started doing some composing and realised that this was a great way for me to be creative. As a composer I could do my creative bit, be involved in the process of music making, but not have to deal with the performance nerves and all of the rest of it”.

Do you think it’s a lot harder now for people to get into the industry than it was when you were fresh out of university?

Samantha: “Oh yeah, I think it’s definitely getting harder. Because of the financial landscape, and coming out of Brexit and also Covid, there’s been a lot of funding cuts that have affected the arts negatively. And so, when there’s less money around, people are less willing to take risks, so in terms of their programme, they have to be more careful, understandably so, and it’s hard.

“You know, they [producers] want things that they know are surefire hit, so that experimentalism can get curtailed, which is such a shame because obviously there’s so much richness and variety that comes with new work.

“I am hopeful that these things go in peaks and troughs, and hopefully things will improve again and we will see a resurgence of support and funding for artistic endeavours”.

What do you think it will take to get to that point, if anything?

Samantha: “It’s to do with things that are much bigger. It’s to do with having access to the arts for young people, which is vital, and making sure that within the education system we still prioritise that.

“Our country, the arts… you know, if the powers that be actually looked and saw how much revenue it actually brings in, they might be more willing to think about how to nurture and support young and emerging artists”.

Do you think that there are enough opportunities for young people, or people from different backgrounds, to get into music?

Samantha: “I mean, there can always be more. The main thing, I think, where we do need to look at putting in resources, is access to music lessons for young people, to make sure that every child has access to music. That seems like a huge thing to say, but it’s just seems so vital to me. I just feel that it’s such a gift to be able to give a child, and you can see the things that can be achieved if a child has access to music”.

Is there any motivation that inspires you to keep pushing forward?

Samantha: “I don’t know. I think if you’re someone that likes to make things, that is the motivation. That’s what you want to do, is to make. So, it’s usually about the work itself: you have an idea, and you want to create something. That’s generally my focus with each project, it’s like, what am I trying to achieve, what sounds?

“For me, it’s kind of a sound object, but for another artist it might be a physical object – a painting or a book… But yes, I think if you’re creatively minded, then it’s the making that’s the focus”.

Samantha Fernando’s Wintering commissioned by Wigmore Hall is at Stoller Hall on 27 November and touring until 5 December 2025.

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Manchester Collective are aligning once again with South African cellist, composer and singer, Abel Selaocoe in a boundary-pushing concert, The Oracle, about connection through music.

In a progression of their highly popular Sirocco collaboration, and backed by the beat of African percussion, Abel is joined by the Collective at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, to present a life-affirming, musical journey across space and time – spanning continents and generations, past and future.

“My journey with Manchester Collective started quite some time ago and our relationship has now matured into something extremely beautiful,” says Selacoe. “The Collective has served as one of my homes to create without any inhibitions – something special always seems to come out of this environment they’ve created. Our latest collaboration will see us explore the sound worlds between classical music and African music, and beyond”.

The title of the show is inspired by the concept of oracles – characters from different communities who impart wise and insightful counsel – transcending space and time to bring a message that is important for everybody’s wellbeing. Exploring a whole new musical connection, the evening will feature four new works on this theme by Selaocoe, (commissioned by Manchester Collective and the Southbank Centre in partnership with the Royal Philharmonic Society), alongside masterpieces by Jean-Philippe Rameau, Igor Stravinsky, Mica Levi and Oliver Leith.

The music incorporates electric bass, African percussion, solo cello and a string orchestra. From Baroque to Mbaqanga music from South Africa, it promises to transcend the boundaries of genre, reimagining classical instruments’ sound worlds, and inviting audiences to jump into different worlds of expression.

“Audiences can expect to be thrown into a world of both the familiar and unfamiliar,” says Selaocoe. “They will be taken on a journey that explores the types of sounds an instrument can make outside of itself, just like an oracle – somebody who can transcend their community and tell a story so that people can understand their purpose.

“Another theme that will bind everything together is Afrofuturism. This has been a very personal journey for me, exploring a topic that speaks to me as a Black person and my idea of where my journey goes in the future – the use of technology, the idea of space, and of transcending what was before to look further ahead. For me, The Oracle is all about finding a universal idea of spirit that can take us to another world.”

Since co-founding Manchester Collective in 2016, Rakhi Singh (Musical Director) and Adam Szabo (CEO) have championed the organisation’s experimental programming and collaborations. In a relatively short time, the Collective has staged around a hundred live shows that have spread over six seasons; integrating classical and electronic music, as well as commissioning new work from contemporary composers including, Edmund Finnis, Hannah Peel, Lyra Pramuk, and Laurence Osborn.

Szabo is led by personal inspiration in seeking exciting collaborations. ‘We tend to find artists that we are blown away and inspired by. They often work in different kind of areas but generally, they have a very strong distinctive artistic personality. Their work has a certain flavour which is absolutely individual,” he says.

“Working with Abel has been interesting as it’s been evolving for many years now. We worked together the first time in 2018 and we have done work together almost every year since that time. A lot of classical musicians are trained to just interpret what they’re given, but Abel always brings something new. There are not many musicians who have that kind of energy; an inexhaustible well of creativity.”

The show aims to create an uplifting atmosphere with joy woven through it. Szabo emphasises it is an event for everyone: “There can be two types of audiences,” he explains. “One of those audiences are people who don’t normally find themselves in concert halls and it will be cool to blow their minds and show them what is possible and how exciting live music can be. The other audience is an artistic community of artists who work in a classical tradition and then it’s about expanding their ideas of what is possible with these instruments”.

The event has been designed to inspire a rush of energy into the audience. Selaocoe has been known for creating a type of atmosphere where you don’t know what could happen next. But Szabo is certain about one thing: “Music is something that should be a shared experience.’ So, if going along to The Oracle, expect the unexpected, alongside a mixture of listening and sense of togetherness.

Those who love live music know the euphoric atmosphere and togetherness that can be experienced at a gig. We could all do with more connection and for some, The Oracle may be the missing piece that can bring a sense of belonging.

The Oracle comes to Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall on 15 April before continuing on its UK Tour. Manchester Collective is also collaborating with Hannah Peel and Lyra Pramuk in Neon which will be held at The White Hotel in Salford on 20 May 2022. This event is minimalistic and includes evolving trance rhythms.

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