MERCURY SONGS – EMILY LEVY & MATTHEW BOURNE

Award-winning performer-composers Emily Levy & Matthew Bourne’s Mercury Songs is a powerful reimagining of British folk, rooted in Bradford’s radical history and inspired by Bradford-born Julia Varley – a
20th-century activist for women’s and worker’s rights.

A 5-piece ensemble weaves together a delicate, experimental orchestration with rich vocal textures, drawing from traditional British folk songs to tell stories of empowered women, challenging familiar tropes of
tragic heroines or seductresses with bold narratives of agency and defiance.

Created for the PRS Foundation New Music Biennial 2025, the original 15-minute piece was premiered at Bradford 2025’s new venue Loading Bay and at London’s Southbank Centre during the New Music Biennial Festival weekends, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and released by NMC Recordings.

Mercury Songs is being co-commissioned by Spitalfields Music for their 2026 Festival as an expanded 1-1¼hr performance programme.