About
From visionary poet Eleanor Conlon and renowned double-bassist Rosie Moon, The Northern Siren is an epic narrative duet that merges experimental musicianship and soaring spoken word performance in a haunting, thrilling, contemporary folk romance.
Through Conlon’s extraordinary voice, which surges from seething whispers and sensuous moans to towering, growling, tempestuous howls, The Northern Siren follows a doomed heroine from the cloying claustrophobia of the city out into the wave-battered wildness of herself.
She is ushered on her way by Moon’s virtuosic playing, which sees the double-bass transform and metamorphose from a rich and resonant bowed instrument into a pumelling percussive partner, imitating alarms, trains, rain, the human voice and the ethereal.
Between Conlon’s poetry, evoking Kate Tempest, Langston Hughes, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Seamus Heaney, and Moon’s playing, representing a masterclass in experimentation encompassing baroque, contemporary, folk and jazz, The Northern Siren is a singular, mythic odyssey.
A two-woman orchestra, the pair summon a storm of fragility, mystery, tragedy and fatal desire in a surging siren song, exploding the tensions between transient modernity and the eternal enchantment of the tides…
Eleanor is a poet, actor, singer, percussionist, puppeteer, and costume maker. The Northern Siren is her first album, born of a creative partnership with renowned double-bassist Rosie Moon, with whom she has been playing since 2018.
Eleanor has an MA in Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama and trained at Shakespeare's Globe, where she conducted research into Renaissance magic and Original Practices costume, and a BA in English from Goldsmith's College, University of London.
Eleanor's original plays tour throughout the United Kingdom and include The Wild Man of Orford, Three Ribbons/Two Sisters, Turning Leaves, A Winter Journey, Dr Dee's Daughter & The Philosopher's Stone, The Green Children of Woolpit, Black Shuck, We Shall Be Monsters, and Tweethearts.
She has worked as an associate artist with Atomic Force Productions on tour with Beowulf, and Bright Moon Theatre with The Lady of Shalott, Baba Yaga and The Mermaid's Tale.
As a storyteller, Eleanor has worked with Brighton Storytellers, Hove Museum & Art Gallery and Kew Gardens Glow Wild.
About Eleanor
Rosie studied with Peter Buckoke at the Royal College of Music and subsequently with Mirella Vedeva and Alberto Bocini at Geneva Conservatoire where she also had regular classes with Franco Petracchi.
She has worked as principal bass under Bernard Haitink, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sir Charles Mackerras, John Wilson and Sir Roger Norrington.
Rosie has played with Aurora Orchestra at King's Place (London) and performed Schubert's ‘Death and the Maiden’ with Terpsycordes Quatuor in the Victoria Hall (Geneva).
As a regular performer with Florilegium, she recently recorded Bach’s complete Brandenburg Concertos with the ensemble live on BBC Radio 3 at the York Early Music Festival.
She is currently a continuo player for the Oxford Bach Soloists, aiming to perform all of Bach’s cantatas over 12 year period.
Rosie has performed with La Nuova Musica, The Feinstein Ensemble and recently toured Vivaldi’s ‘Griselda’ with Irish National Opera and Irish Baroque Orchestra under the direction of Peter Whelan.
About Rosie
From visionary poet Eleanor Conlon and renowned double-bassist Rosie Moon, The Northern Siren is an epic narrative duet that merges experimental musicianship and soaring spoken word performance in a haunting, thrilling, contemporary folk romance.
The album is available to buy now through Bandcamp, iTunes, and Amazon Music, and is also available through all major streaming services.
