Kiran Leonard

Deveraun Seraun

Image of Kiran Leonard - Deveraun Seraun
Record Label
Moshi Moshi

About this item

In 2014 I was invited to perform at a residency commemorating the re-opening of Manchester Central Library. I wrote a piece in five movements for voice, piano and string trio and called it “DEREVAUN SERAUN”. Each movement is written about a different piece of literature, exploring the value I see in each work and the impression it has made on me, and there is nothing more to it than that. The pleasure of books – of good verse and stories and ideas – is a very simple thing, and I felt that some lofty unifying theme for the entire piece would be a betrayal of that belief.

I think that when a work resonates with you it is an instinctive response to something. You can be taught to understand a challenging book, but not to feel affection for it; I think a lot of conversation around art, especially around literature, sometimes forgets this. In my experience, the art I like the most, irrespective of its 'difficulty', is the art I can advocate most directly and plainly, and about which I can say: “I read this piece and now I do not read or think in the same way that I did before”, or: “This is a story that I could not explain to someone; I do not understand it word-for-word, yet I feel like innately I understand the whole, and that the whole spoke to me”. This is a piece about five books that I like and why I like them

TRACK LISTING

1. Could She Still Draw Back
2. Living With Your Ailments
3. A Particle Of Flesh Refuse The Consummation Of Death
4. The Mute Wide-Open Eye Of All Things
5. The Cure For Pneumothorax 

Back to top