GBSR Duo

BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show presenter Kate Molleson describes Oliver Leith’s 2018 composition as “deadpan, subversive, quietly anarchic, disarmingly heart-sore and sweet-sour,” music that makes “masterful use of space, placement, sparse forces and really deft repetition.” Leith calls it a tender look at the simultaneously debilitating and beautiful irrationalities of our everyday lives; how our obsessions and compulsions surface and the rituals, superstitions and routines we all play out to appease our minds… and how that never really works. Created in collaboration with the GBSR Duo (percussionist George Barton and pianist Siwan Rhys, recipients of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artist Award 2025), the work offers disarming reflections on performance, relationships, codependency and mental health, staged within an instrument-strewn setting inspired by the duo’s own flat.