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staged workshop 17 April 2005 The Princeton Atelier McCarter Theater Princeton, NJ concert broadcast premiere 16 June 2007 Bloomsday on Broadway XXVI Peter Sharp Theater Symphony Space, NYC staged premiere 6 November 2007 The Phoenix Players The Century Association, NYC |
The Antient Concert is a sixty-minute "dramatic recital" for four singers and piano (or string quartet) with music by American composer Daron Hagen
and words by Irish poet Paul Muldoon.
The story told by The Antient Concert concerns itself with the 1904 Feis Ceoil competition recital on 27 August 1904 in the Antient Concert Rooms in Dublin, Ireland. Legend has it that John McCormack and James Joyce competed that night in the Tenor singing competition. There is no documentary evidence of this; however, Joyce did win the Bronz Medal that year (it is said that he did not agree with the stipulation that competitors demonstrate their musicianship by doing some sight-reading, and left the stage). Many believe that it was McCormack's 1903 win of the Gold Medal that launched his career. For the purpose of telling a story about the collision of words, music, performance, sex, death, and nationalism, the authors chose five traditional ballads that Joyce and McCormack may have performed that evening, and used them as the musical and textual foundation upon which the piece is built. Consequently, throughout the recital, the characters shift between "performance mode" and the expression of their internal thoughts. Learn more. |