Penelope by Psappha
Thursday 26 October 2017, 19:30
Hallé St Peter’s, 40 Blossom Street, Ancoats Manchester M4 6BF
Molly Joyce – Rave (UK première)
Anna Clyne – Steelworks
Sarah Kirkland Snider – Penelope*
Richard Balcombe – conductor*
Jessica Walker – vocalist*
Psappha Ensemble
Three striking works from brilliant US-based composers.
A woman’s husband appears at her door after an absence of twenty years. A veteran of an unnamed war, he doesn’t know who he is and she doesn’t know who he’s become. While they wait together for his return to himself, she reads him the Odyssey, and in the journey of that book she finds a way into his memory and the terror and trauma of war. Suspended somewhere between art song, indie rock, and chamber folk, the music of Penelope moves from moments of elegiac reflection to dusky post-rock textures in a meditation on memory, identity, and what it means to come home.
Rave gives the impression of impossible virtuosity, transforming the piano into a multi-dimensional piano/organ hybrid. Giving a fascinating glimpse into a disappearing world, the music of Steelworks interacts with film and with recorded interviews of employees at the last steelworks factory in Brooklyn.