Events - 2012

Black Water: Music and Libretto by Jeremy Beck, based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates (used by permission)

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'Black Water' is an hour-long program premiering the work of American composer Jeremy Beck. A highly acclaimed and much-awarded composer, Beck is resident in Louisville, Kentucky. He holds degrees from the Yale School of Music, Duke University and the Mannes College of Music, where his principle teachers included Lukas Foss, Stephen Jaffe and David Loeb. Adelaide pianist Julie Sargeant lived and worked in the United States for almost a decade where she became exposed to a wide-range of American contemporary music. She has performed some of Beck's works and considers the concert she attended that was solely the 40-minute presentation of 'Black Water' as one of the most dramatic musical experiences she has had as an audience member. Now Ms Sargeant, along with soprano Karen Fitz-Gibbon and cellist Zoe Wallace, is bringing the music of Jeremy Beck to Adelaide. The program begins with his Sonata No 3 for cello and piano ("Moon") and 'Black Water' is the feature composition for the evening. It is an intense monodrama based on the novel of the same name by Joyce Carol Oates. It is the thoughts and recollections of a young girl who is trapped in a car that has been driven into a river _x0013_ a psychological fantasy drawn from the infamous incident at Chappaquiddick in Massachusetts in 1969. It covers a range of emotions as she recalls the party she has just attended with celebrated politicians, her fear of the out-of-control driving, tender memories of her families, terror as they fly off the road into the river - and her ultimate death. A gripping and memorable work.