Night Three: Patrick Zimmerli’s Lucia Joyce // Satoshi Takeishi’s Premonition

Presented by New Music Dublin with support from the Arts Council & in partnership with RTÉ and the National Concert Hall. The Diatribe Stage is supported by the Arts Council. 

Carol Loeb Schloss’ biography ‘To Dance in the Wake’ credits Lucia Joyce with much of the language and texture of her father James’ Finnegans Wake, but the truth of Lucia’s story will likely be forever unknown. ‘Lucia Joyce’, the new opera by saxophonist / composer Patrick Zimmerli treats that not-knowing dramatically, presenting the burning of her letters as a final act of silencing. Zimmerli’s sweeping score has inflections of Donizetti’s ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ and 1920’s Parisian jazz, whilst creating spaces for improvisation and melodic interweave between voice and saxophone.

“A few years ago, a friend of mine, a film director, told me he was working on a new script based on Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial. He already had a short draft and asked me to compose music for it. After reading the novel, I was deeply struck by the disturbing world it depicted and its eerie resonance with the times we live in today, even though it was written over a century ago. Since creating the album “Premonition”, I have become increasingly curious about the sense of spiritual loss experienced by humanity during that period and its connection to the birth of electronic music. My new solo work is a continuation of this theme.” – Satoshi Takeishi