Penelope presented by TURNmusic, ft. Mary Bonhag
Date: Sunday Mar 30, 2025
Time: 2:00 PM
Price: Pay what you can range $20 - $40
Penelope Performance Description
Song about relationships, compassion and healing. Composed by Sarah Kirkland Snider. Lyrics by Ellen McLaughlin.
Inspired by Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey, Penelope is a meditation on memory, identity, and what it means to come home. The song cycle, written in 2009 for Shara Worden and Ensemble Signal, is based on a music-theater monodrama written by Snider and playwright Ellen McLaughlin for the J. Paul Getty Center in 2008. In the work, a woman’s husband appears at her door after an absence of twenty years, suffering from brain damage. 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 to him from the Odyssey, and in the journey of that book, she finds a way into her former husband’s memory and the terror and trauma of war.
PENELOPE for Mezzo-soprano and Septet
14 Movements, Duration 60'
INSTRUMENTATION
Mezzo-soprano
Guitar (electric, acoustic)
2 Violin
Viola
Violoncello
Bass
Laptop/Live Electronics*
Percussion
About TURNmusic
TURNmusic supports innovative, living music creators and celebrates their craft. From chamber music and improvisation to jazz, electronics and more, our concerts are built with a commitment to representation, diversity and originality. Some music creators are spending their lives creating music that may never be mainstream. TURNmusic provides a way for this music to be heard. Performing artists are offered a space to play and create and TURNmusic also works to bring them an audience. This is a service we provide and that is our commitment to new music. We have developed partnerships with Vermont Symphony Orchestra, New Amsterdam Records, Outer Sounds and The Phoenix Gallery & Music Hall. We have an innovative TURNyouth program funded by The Ben & Jerry’s Foundation and The Alchemist. We are building community through our all-ages, monthly Jazz Jam. Find out more at www.turnmusic.org
Barre Opera House art installation by painter Arthur Zorn. Arthur Zorn is a self-taught abstract impressionist who largely works with acrylic paint, found objects, and interdisciplinary mediums including music and film. His small and large-scale paintings depict deconstructed landscapes, abstracted natural objects, and emotions transcribed on the canvas. Although he was interested in the visual arts as a child (b. 1954) in the Bronx, it wasn’t until he was established in his career in music education and performance in Vermont (Lyndon State College, B.S.) that he began to experiment with artistic expression outside of the music he composed. Zorn’s first solo visual art show, aptly named “Improvisations,” took place in 2004 at the Bundy Gallery in Waitsfield, VT. Zorn collaborates with private collectors who have commissioned original paintings and murals, and his paintings are housed in private collections throughout the United States including California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Vermont. Zorn resides at his art studio in Barre, VT.
