Manchester Collective to Reimagine John Adams' SHAKER LOOPS With Spoken Word Poet Christ Bryan

Trailblazing ensemble Manchester Collective will return to London's Queen Elizabeth Hall this month with a bold new reimagining of John Adams' Shaker Loops. For the first time, the Southbank Centre Resident Artists perform the landmark minimalist work in collaboration with Salford-based spoken word poet Christ Bryan, weaving his original texts into Adams' surging, hypnotic score.

This collaborative project will be performed by Bryan and a string orchestra, expanding Shaker Loops's restless, pulsing energy with greater scale and intensity on stage. The London date at the Southbank Centre (26 September) launches a UK tour that will take the work to audiences in Manchester, and then to Leeds and Bristol for intimate performances by a string septet.

The evening's programme sets up a journey from the earth to the ecstatic: Kaija Saariaho's Terra Memoria meditates on memory and mortality, while Shaker Loops explodes with light and physical drive. For the musicians, Adams' piece is almost a dance, its whirling repetitions pushing performers to the point of physical endurance — their arms literally shaking as the music builds in intensity.

Rakhi Singh, Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Manchester Collective, said: “When putting together this programme, it was very much based around the work in the second half, ‘Shaker Loops': this huge work with such a distinctive energy.

“It's really interesting playing ‘Shaker Loops', because you almost have to get into this space of dance when you're playing it. It's a real physical feat.”

Though Adams' piece was inspired by the American Shakers, the movement itself began in 18th-century England. Known for their ecstatic worship — which earned them the nickname “Shaking Quakers” — the Shakers built communities based on radical equality, celibacy, pacifism and communal living. Their origins can be traced back to Manchester, making Bryan's contribution a striking way of reconnecting Adams' music to the city's own history.

Rakhi added: “It actually turns out that the Shakers originated from the Greater Manchester area, so we thought it really apt to invite our amazing local poet, Chris Bryan, to work with us on this.”

Poet Christ Bryan said: “I was taken with the idea of small groups of people coming together through a dissatisfaction with the world around them. That spirit feels as alive today as it did in the time of the Shakers.”