THE KING’S GRIEF

In THE KING’S GRIEF, The Happenstancers present Judith Weir’s micro-opera King Harald’s Saga, punctuating Weir's tragic narrative with the music of Thomas Adès, Oliver Knussen, Thierry Tidrow, Mary Dering, John Dowland, and casting the works as incidental music within a larger drama.
The contemporary music in this performance features historical allusion and musical quotation, stealing the listener’s sense of chronological location and pulling them between the sounds of the past, present, and some-time else entirely.
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Prologue
Oliver Knussen — Elegiac Arabesques
First Act
Judith Weir — King Harald’s Saga, act I
Mary Dering (arr. Thierry Tidrow) — When First I Saw…
A Purcell Garland
O. Knussen — Upon One Note
Colin Matthews — Fantasia VII
George Benjamin — Fantasia XII
John Dowland (arr. The Happenstancers) — Seaven Teares
Second Act
Thomas Adès — Darknesse Visible
J. Weir — King Harald’s Saga, Act II
M. Dering (arr. T. Tidrow) — And is This All?
T. Adès — Court Studies, from The Tempest
i. The False Duke
ii. The Prince
iii. The King
iv. The False Duke’s Defeat
iv. The Counsellor
M. Dering (arr. T. Tidrow) — A False Designe to be Cruel
J. Weir — King Harald’s Saga, act III
Epilogue
J. Weir — King Harald’s Saga, epilogue
T. Adès — Court Studies, from The Tempest
vi. The King’s Grief
The Happenstancers
Reilly Nelson, voice
Julia Mirzoev, violin
Peter Eom, cello
Brad Cherwin, artistic director and clarinets
Declan Scott, flugelhorn
Joonghun Cho, keyboards
Billy Wong, lighting
Hoi Tong Keung, production and operations manager