A mini rock opera interpretation of Joyce’s Ulysses, imagined as a walk home down Nassau Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, from the G subway stop to Monitor Street on June 9, 2004. Numerous musical references out of the Joyce text, the classical canon, and The Sea and Cake album, “Nassau.” Premiered by The Dogs of Desire in three installments: 2005, 2007, 2011.

True to James Joyce’s style, this work is heavily quotation-laden, both in musical themes and textual references. In particular The Sea and Cake’s second album, Nassau, is an important underlying reference, as it is an embedded soundtrack playing to the protagonist either via an iPod or inside his head. Textual references are drawn both from Joyce’s Ulysses and Homer’s Odyssey. This referential style spills into real life, as businesses and real places along Nassau Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, from Manhattan Avenue to Monitor Street, as they existed on June 9, 2004, provide the geographical framework. In this way it was my intention to create a lasting memory of time and place in the same way Joyce did for his Dublin of June 16, 1904.Visit my blog at this site to see and hear this piece.

Nassau

by Evan Hause on October 24, 2014 in Chamber Orchestra, Choral/Vocal • 0 Comments

Nassau, Vol. 1 (2005)

Nassau, Vol. II (2007)

Nassau, Vol. 3 (2011)

Instrumentation:

1111 Alto&TenSaxes 1110 Perc 2Vocal soloists (high and med. voices) SoloStr

Year:

2004-2011

Duration:

32'

Publisher:

Unpublished