Olagón: A Cantata in Doublespeak
A Modern Retelling of an Ancient Irish Epic
22-24 February
Wallace Theater, Lewis Arts complex, Princeton University
Four-time Grammy-winning contemporary music ensemble Eighth Blackbird collaborates with composer and fiddler Dan Trueman, vocalist Iarla Ó Lionáird of the contemporary Irish supergroup The Gloaming, and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon for a special performance of the new work Olagón, commissioned by Poetry Foundation with Irish Arts Center, Aaron Copeland Fund for Music, Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts: Artworks, and the University of Richmond.
Olagón depicts the legendary Irish tale Táin Bó Cúailnge as a story of hardship in contemporary, post-recession Ireland while honoring traditional music of Ireland, Norway, and America. Muldoon’s text—written in both English and Irish—is sung in the sean-nós style by Ó Lionáird.
“One of the smartest, most dynamic contemporary classical ensembles on the planet”
—Chicago Tribune on Eighth Blackbird
“One of the most dramatic voices in contemporary music”
—The Guardian on Iarla Ó Lionáird
“Trueman is a man out of time, one foot in tomorrow’s software, the other in yesterday’s folk music”
—Electronic Musician on Dan Trueman
“One of the great poets of the past hundred years . . . only Yeats before him could write with such measured fury”
—The New York Times Book Review on Paul Muldoon
