Photo: Press
New Order are set to rework their back catalogue with a 12-piece synthesiser ensemble as part of this year’s Manchester International Festival. Other highlights the festival include an opera for babies and Jane Horrocks singing about Lancashire’s cotton industry.
Manchester International Festival (MIF) is the world’s first festival of original, new work and special events. The Festival is staged every two years in Manchester, UK – the next edition will take place from 29 June to 16 July 2017 at venues all over the city.
The Mancunian legends are set to take over the old Granada studios that were once the home of long-running soap Coronation Street. New Order will stage a number of intimate shows in collaboration with visual artist Liam Gillick who has previously exhibited his work at the Tate Modern in London and the Museum Of Modern Art in New York. Also taking part will be composer-arranger Joe Duddell who has previously worked with New Order in addition to new bands like Temples, Blossoms, Daughter, and East India Youth.
New Order + Liam Gillick: So It Goes… will see the band rework material from their career and they’ll be joined by musicians from the Royal Northern College Of Music, with orchestration by Duddell.
Speaking to The Guardian, singer Bernard Sumner told fans to expect something different from the norm.
He said: “Can I make it clear it won’t be anything like our normal sets? There will be no ‘Blue Monday’, no ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart.’
“It’s good to do something different at all because that is what we were like when we started, just hopefully not so much chaos.”
He explained that the songs were subject to “real, micro deconstruction, even taking a four-note chord and splitting out those notes to four different players, so each player has a monophonic line”.
He said he was excited to take part in the festival: “We didn’t hesitate to say yes because it’s a great festival and it’s in our hometown.”
Details the rest of the festival’s line up are available at the festival’s website.
