This collaboration between Manchester Collective and guitarist Sean Shibe promised to be electrifying and so it was: boundary-pushing and genre-defying being fundamental to both their approaches, all achieved with unassuming flair. In this first outing of their eight-concert tour, the transatlantic programming was an invitation to the audience to be as curious about the nature and power of sound as they themselves clearly are. By way of acclimatisation, the Collective’s artistic director violinist Rakhi Singh and Shibe on electric guitar began with two of John Cage’s Six Melodies, the almost folk-like simplicity of the instruments’ responses to each other played out in an infinite variety of ways, with the remaining two pairs of melodies interlaced into the overall sequence as though offering periodic Zen zoning-out.
David Fennessy’s Rosewood was named for the aromatic wood used to fashion guitar fingerboards, but has also given its title to this tour and its meditative theme. Originally a solo piece performed by Shibe’s teacher Allan Neave, Fennessy rejigged it for Shibe as the plural Rosewoods with string quartet all close-mic’d – as is the collective’s practice – but blending carefully with the acoustic guitar. The sequence of five reflections on light and, within it, moments of poised silence had a captivating quality, particularly its central movement with gentle guitar figurations. At the end came a radiant calm.
