REQUIEM is a performance-installation for open instrumentation, staging, and surround audio.

Lasting half an hour, the work presents a perturbed scene, comprising anonymous male dummy corpses, gender reveal balloons, poppy petals, and loud speakers playing distorted football chants and hymns. Costumed instrumentalists wander this queerly macabre space, sometimes playing fragments of music by the late producer SOPHIE, at other times documenting the scene with the phones, or even remaining unsettlingly still. REQUIEM, then, sits uneasily between a piece of its namesake and an insincere necromantic ritual.

The piece premiered at the University of Leeds by LSTwo under direction of Mic Spencer, 9 May 2024. Additional acting and cello in the video below by Ben Finlay.

requiem —

  1. a Mass for the repose of the souls of the dead.

  2. a musical composition setting parts of a requiem Mass, or of a similar character.

  3. an act or token of remembrance.


necromancy —

  1. a method of divination through alleged communication with the dead; black art.

  2. magic in general, especially that practiced by a witch or sorcerer; sorcery; witchcraft; conjuration.

to queer —

  1. to spoil; ruin

  2. to put (a person) in a hopeless or disadvantageous situation as to success, favour, etc.

  3. the act of taking something and looking at it through a lens that makes it strange or troubles it in some way.