Shara sings Penelope: CD + NYC concert

photo by Murat Eyuboglu

On October 18th, at (le) Poisson Rouge in NYC, Shara will be performing the music of Sarah Kirkland Snider backed by yMusic, a six piece chamber ensemble with violinist Rob Moose at the helm (you remember the guy playing violin on every MBD album? yeah, that’s him!).

“This is What You’re Like” mp3

The album, entitled Penelope (which officially will be released on New Amsterdam Records on October 26th) is a 60-minute song cycle composed by Snider for Worden and the orchestral group, Signal, based on texts by playwright Ellen McLaughlin, derived from the music theater piece of the same name she and Snider wrote together in 2007-2008.

The songs loosely tell a story: A woman’s husband appears at her door after an absence of 20 years, suffering from brain damage. A veteran of a modern 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 Homer’s epic poem 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.

Yeah!