Light Night Leeds: Taal Yatra

For this year’s Light Night Leeds, Opera North Projects crosses the road from its home in the Howard Assembly Room to make St John’s Churchyard resound with the rhythms of drums from across the world.

Spinning around you, jumping from tree to tree, this installation sends the patterns of these most virtuosic instruments dancing through the Churchyard in sound and light. Tabla and dholak (India), daf and doumbek (Persia) and djembe (West Africa) create a huge range of sounds and rhythms, as they build toward a dramatic climax.

Tabla maestro and composer Shahbaz Hussain’s array of South Asian percussion combines with sounds from two other traditions: the doumbek, an Arabic goblet drum played by Arian Sadr, and the versatile West African djembe, played by Ivorian griot and master percussionist Sidiki Dembele. Sound design is by Jamie Birkett, with lighting by Urban Projections.

Taal Yatra is part of a programme of events accompanying Opera North’s production of Orpheus with a mixed ensemble of South Asian and Baroque musicians and singers onstage at the Grand Theatre.

Commissioned and produced by Opera North Projects for Light Night Leeds 2022.
With thanks to the Churches Conservation Trust.