Music for Artists and Other Collaborative Projects
Leo has worked extensively on music, sound design and performance for projects in the gallery and on stage, with a particular focus on artists' film and live art. Selected projects are listed below. For a fuller list, please see the catalogue of works.
Film by Jennet Thomas
Commissioned by the Whitstable Biennale, a folk-sci-fi film set in a world where animals have "ended" and mourning them is taboo. Songs and sound design by Leo.
Film / installation by Jennet Thomas for Tintype Gallery, London.
Leo provided unsettling arrangements of mediaeval music and noisy washes of synthesised sound design, mirroring this work's striking imagery of an alternate reality in which characters embrace or resist a mysterious intelligent substance.
Film / installation by Marianna Simnett for Matt's Gallery, London.
Part fairy tale, part body horror, Leo contributed music and arrangements to this installation of film and choreographed light, shot on location in medical facilities and factories, his second collaboration with Marianna Simnett, following a live performance at the Serpentine Gallery in 2015.
Film / installation by Jasleen Kaur for the V&A museum, London.
A dizzying collage of shots of European locations, seen from point of view of Indian cinema. The piece was projected onto the ceiling of Room 10a of the V&A Museum (Noble Living, 1350-1500). Leo wrote the soundtrack.
16mm film and installation by Frances Scott for the Focal Point Gallery, Southend.
A haunting, labyrinthine film, shot on location in Venice and Canvey Island. Leo wrote the score, for string players who also appear onscreen. Exhibited within an installed theatrical set as Frances' first solo show, Summer 2016.
Film and installation by Jennet Thomas for the Grundy Gallery, Blackpool.
Leo wrote the music, based on electronic mutilations of pieces by John Dowland, for this science fiction exploration of the cultural "after burn" of the imagery and ideas of Margaret Thatcher. Toured the UK during Spring 2015, re-exhibited in a new installed iteration at Block 336, London, 2016.
Performance devised by Jordan McKenzie for the Freud Museum, London.
Leo was one of twelve composers who contributed a song to this project, which set transcriptions of the lived experiences of members of the London Gay Men's Chorus, collected by psychoanalyst Susie Orbach. Jordan McKenzie presented the resulting music at the Freud Museum, and on tour at UK festivals.
Site-specific performance in collaboration with Frances Scott for AIR Projects.
Taking place in the window of time precisely between civil twilight and sunrise on a May morning, a performance for singers walking through Granary Square, Kings Cross, London, based on words by William Wordsworth and devised by Frances Scott. Score and musical direction by Leo.
Five screen video installation by Richard Grayson for Dilston Grove / Matt's Gallery.
Taking as its starting point the 1943 song "Stalin Wasn't Stallin", the piece featured five singers shot on location at various landmarks of economic and cultural power in London, coordinated across time and space as if by magic. Score and musical direction by Leo.
Score and performance in collaboration with Cerith Wyn Evans commissioned by IMMA.
Leo collaborated with artist Cerith Wyn Evans on a new score for unaccompanied voices, for performance at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). Taking its title and starting point from Samuel Beckett's elliptical text, the piece combines lush harmonies with extended vocal techniques.
Installation by Tanya Axford commissioned by the Whitstable Bienniale.
Leo devised the music for this installation - a combination of fleeting video images projected from pendulums and live musicians reacting to the movement of people within the gallery space.
Video installation by Jennet Thomas for Matt's Gallery, London.
Leo created the music and sound design for this sci-fi video and installation and appeared as the character 'Mr. New Structures'. Read an extended interview about the project (with stills) on Jennet's website and view the trailer here.
Soundtrack for gallery installation by Ruiz Stephinson
An installation exploring the exuberant and unsettling imagery of fairground attractions, cartoon characters and space exploration. Leo's soundtrack was an analogous collision of electronic music, fairground organ and anachronistic sound effects.
Live performance at the Markson Pianos Showroom, London.
For an event curated by producer David Cunningham, a piece for twelve pianos, Unison: Things Are Getting Worse. Staged to coincide with Markson Pianos centenary and recorded for broadcast on Resonance FM. Read more about the project on David Cunningham's website.
Soundtrack for Recessional Aesthetics event curated by no.w.here at the James Taylor Gallery, London.
Leo created a series of 'sonic interruptions' based on 1940s morale-boosting radio broadcasts (with spoken snatches of Das Kapital), to accompany a unique event organised by artists Brad Butler and Karen Mirza of no.w.here, exploring the effects of economic cuts on the arts.
Video installation by Richard Grayson, Co-commissioned by ArtPace (San Antonio) and Matt's Gallery (London)
Leo wrote the score for this film installation, a 45-minute choral 'oratorio' setting of cult religious texts. Filmed on location in San Antonio, Texas, and exhibited at Matt's Gallery. Subsequently shown internationally.
National Theatre / Filter Theatre production
Leo co-wrote a new score for this production of Brecht's play, which toured the UK before a sold-out run at the Cottesloe (National Theatre). He also played the role of 'The Singer' in an acclaimed performance.
Site-specific solo performance
Commissioned by the Magazin4 Gallery in Bregenz, Austria, Leo created this eerie spoken word performance with field recordings and electronics, presented as an installation in a black box space.
Dance performance by Frauke Requardt Company
Leo wrote and performed the electronic music in this work, which also featured the Ingrid Laubrock Quintet. It was presented at festivals across Europe before a run at the Royal Opera House, Linbury Studio.
Site-specific solo performance
Commissioned by the TwoSee boutique in London, a spoken word solo performance with slide projections and electronics that played with the tropes of the fashion industry, human sense and perception, and automatic writing.
Sound installation by Sandrine Nicoletta
Leo contributed improvised vocals to this sound installation, exhibited at the Galleria Maze, Turin. The voices of five singers in five languages were presented in Dolby surround sound, performing text scores by the artist.
Press for Stage and Screen Projects
Press for The Great Curdling
...the 24-minute film teeters on the edge of plausibility yet ultimately delivers a darkly prescient take on our self-harming, planet-wrecking lifestyles...
—Chris Sharratt, Frieze, 2022
Press for The Path Made by a Boat in Sound (3 down)
...a mesmerising work, the music of cello and piano is beautiful and immersive...
—Dany Louise, New Statesman, 2012
Press for The Golden Space City of God
...Grayson commissioned Leo Chadburn to write the music and assembled a choir in Texas to sing it. The results are startling, shocking, distressing, unforgettable. Grayson's piece works as well as it does because everything is revealed so unassumingly... you slowly realise that these insane predictions bear a scary resemblance to world events. Close the book on the 2009 Turner prize, Grayson should be a shoo-in...
—Waldemar Januszczak, Sunday Times, May 17, 2009.
Press for The Caucasian Chalk Circle
...At the production's centre is Leo Chadburn's Singer, who, as narrator and commentator, is a key component of the play's "alienation" effects. A charismatic blend of Scott Walker and Jarvis Cocker, Chadburn has rock-star glamour and a riveting presence. His vocals arrestingly combine crooning and Sprechgesang, and the musical score, created by Chadburn, Chris Branch and Tom Haines, is wildly abrasive...
—Sam Marlowe, Times, March 13, 2007.