The everyday wonder and lurking fear of new motherhood, and the emotional journey along the way, is the subject of a new and beautiful collection of songs in Life Cycle, twenty short songs written by acclaimed author Toby Litt and highly regarded young composer Emily Hall, performed by singer Mara Carlyle. 

In a time when ‘One Born Every Minute’ on Channel 4 television draws viewing figures of over 800,000 per episode, birth obviously retains its eternal fascination, in all its medical detail, joy and sleepless nights. Although everyone on earth has been through it, perhaps birth is still one of life’s last few mysteries? The subject of many a novel, it’s a subject less frequently dealt with in song, perhaps for fear of sentiment, a danger that Litt and Hall’s unflinching yet genuinely moving songs side-step at every turn. 

This new commission by Opera North Projects will be performed for the first time by a collection of talented musicians at the Southbank Centre’s ‘WOW - Women of the World’ festival this March 13th 2011, including the Southbank Centre’s artist in residence, cellist Oliver Coates.
 
Author Toby Litt has an almost uncanny ability to capture female experiences of motherhood, and has returned to the theme of losing and having children both in fiction and in his autobiographical writing. A father himself, Toby is the prize-winning author of Ghost Story, a novel dealing with a couple’s loss of their child. In Life Cycle, tenderness and wry humour infuse his words, from More Than Milk to Upon Your Chest. 

Song 13, More than Milk
“There used to be a woman in this body not just milk.

There used to be a substance to her living, not just milk and carrying.

There used to be a life that was outflowing, not just milk and carrying and saying hush.” 

Emily Hall has been working together with Toby on putting his words to her music since 2006. A highly regarded composer, Hall’s work has been performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta and Philharmonia. This is an emotionally charged piece of music for piano, cello and voice.
  
Song 8, I am Alone
“I am alone no longer only one. I do not want to be alone I want you but not too soon.

I am alone but they say I can eat for two. This cake’s for you and this cake’s for you too.” 

Singer Mara Carlyle has recently seen her star in the ascendant as her song Pianni starred in an IKEA advert featuring 100 cats in the chain’s Wembley store, which has had around a million hits on Youtube. She is a classically trained singer who often uses more contemporary techniques associated with hip-hop, such as samples and loops. Mara was recently featured on Desert Island Disks when one of her records was chosen by newsreader Jon Snow, who said of Mara “She is right out there, doing things nobody else is doing.” 

Opera North commissioned this piece as part of Resonance, a programme of artists’ ‘work in progress’. Other projects that have been developed to critical acclaim have included The Girl I Left Behind Me, The Gypsy Bible and Mercy and Grand- The Tom Waits Project.
 
Life Cycle is a performance of one hour with music and film. It will be touring across several venues this Spring, opening at the Southbank Centre in March and closing in May at the home of Opera North in Leeds, the Howard Assembly Room. 

Performers: Mara Carlyle (voice), Oliver Coates (cello) and John Reid (piano)

Dates: Sunday 13 March, 13:00, Southbank Centre, London; Friday 27th May, 19:45, Howard Assembly Room, Leeds 

www.howardassemblyroom.co.uk
www.thesouthbankcentre.co.uk  

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