Media Release 21st August 2015

Anna Calvi, Sam Amidon, Thomas Bartlett, Robert Forster and more offer New Interpretations of W.B. Yeats in Blood & The Moon at the National Concert Hall

Thomas Bartlett (of The Gloaming) and Pulitzer prize winning poet Paul Muldoon curate ‘Blood & The Moon’ a brand new show featuring some of today’s most intriguing international talents to create new songs from the work of W.B. Yeats.

‘Blood & The Moon’ makes it’s international debut for two exclusive performances at the National Concert Hall on September 13th and 14th.

Featuring Mercury Prize nominee Anna Calvi, folk icon Sam Amidon, Robert Forster of The Go-Betweens, NYC cabaret icon Justin Vivian Bond, Cathal Coughlan founding member of The Fatima Mansions and Microdisney, Choice Music Prize winner Adrian Crowley, The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto writer Pat McCabe, the concerts also new commissions from composers from Nico Muhly and Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and live imaging by Tom Kalin.

Blood and the Moon will feature newly created pieces and songs from all the participating performers including :

• New versions of Wild Swans At Coole, Down By Salley Gardens and Lake Isle of Innisfree by Sam Amidon
• Robert Forster new songs based Crazy Jane poems
• Cathal Coughlan’s new arrangement of The Cold Heaven
• Cathal Coughlan and Thomas Bartlett’s new version of Easter 1916
• Nico Muhly’s new piece Byzantium for solo piano and soprano Daire Halpin

and much more from all the other performers

A new project developed by the National Concert Hall and presented as part of it’s Perspective Series 2015, Blood & The Moon offers audiences brand new interpretations on the work of one of Ireland’s most respected poets W.B. Yeats. Blood & The Moon was written in 1928 and published in the collection The Winding Stair in 1929 before being reprinted in The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933).

Blood & the Moon is supported by Today FM, the Irish Independent and Yeats 2015.

Blood & the Moon: A Provocation on Yeats
Sunday 13th and Monday 14th September at the National Concert Hall
Tickets: €37.50, €32.50 on Tel: 01 417 00 00

The Artists:

Anna Calvi
Mercury nominated for her debut in 2011, Calvi was listed in the BBC Sound of 2011 Poll, The British Breakthrough Act at the Brit Awards in 2011, and has been revered ever since even by the unshakable Nick Cave and Brian Eno. She has been described by The Guardian as ‘softly spoken and painfully shy; a guitar virtuoso who transforms into a dynamic, dramatic front-woman whose theatrical, neo-operatic vocal style is comparable to Jeff Buckley, Martha Wainwright or PJ Harvey”. Messiaen, Ravel and Debussy, Django Reinhardt, Jimi Hendrix and flamenco dancers are just some of her influences.

Sam Amidon
Sam Amidon has just released his latest album Lily-O with Bill Frisell on Nonesuch Records. The Vermont-born and raised, London-based Amidon’s particular gift is not to compose new songs, but to rework and repurpose traditional melodies into a striking new form that makes them feel very much his own. “His interpretations are so singular that it stops mattering how or if they existed before.” Pitchfork

Thomas Bartlett aka Doveman
Thomas Bartlett is best known in Ireland as a member of The Gloaming and for his recent sell-out Burgundy Stain Session at the National Concert Hall. A talented pianist, his work with artists such as The National, Antony Hegarty and David Byrne singles him out as one of America’s current finest producers and collaborators. Most recently he produced Sufjan Steven’s Carrie and Lowell.

Robert Forster
Robert Forster is an Australian singer-songwriter, best known for his work with song-writing partner Grant McLennan, with whom he co-founded The Go-Betweens. He has also released a series of acclaimed solo albums including Danger in the Past, Warm Nights and The Evangelist. Regarded as one of rock music’s most literary writers, he is a longtime Yeats admirer.

Cathal Coughlan
Singer, songwriter and polemicist, founding member of seminal Irish bands, The Fatima Mansions and Microdisney, Cathal Coughlan is a key figure in Irish music. He has released a series of acclaimed solo albums and has been termed the 'genius of Irish rock' by The Irish Times.

Nico Muhly
Nico Muhly has composed a wide scope of work for ensembles, soloists and organizations including the Boston Pops, Carnegie Hall, pianist Emanuel Ax & mezzo-soprano Sophie von Otter, countertenor Iestyn Davies, violinist Pekka Kuusitu, The Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York Philharmonic, Paris Opéra Ballet, soprano Jessica Rivera, and designer / illustrator Maira Kalman. Nico will write a new Yeats song for the event.

Justin Vivian Bond
Justin Vivian Bond is an American writer, singer, performance artist and painter, described as a “fixture of the New York avant-garde”. V’s debut CD DENDRPOPHILE was self-released on WhimsyMusic in 2011 and was followed by SILVER WELLS in 2012. Coming to prominence playing the role of Kiki DuRayne in the drag cabaret act Kiki and Herb from the early 1990s through to 2004 and since establishing a prominent solo career, Bond has received numerous accolades for performing; winning Obie (2001) a 2007 Tony nomination. V has performed stages including: London’s Soho Theatre and Queen Elizabeth Hall and New York’s The Knitting Factory and Carnegie Hall, as well as a host of other venues worldwide.
 
Adrian Crowley
Choice Music Prize winner Adrian Crowley is one of Ireland’s most highly regarded songwriters. His last release was Some Blue Morning” on Chemikal Underground. A song of his Summer Haze Parade features  in the opening scene in the Irish feature film Get Up And Go (2015). More recently, The Wishing Seat graced the closing sequences of Brendan Muldowney's film Love Eternal.  This year has seen Adrian his been touring extensively in Europe, working on a collection of prose and writing his eighth album.
 
Tom Kalin (Film and Imaging)
From short experimental videos to feature-length narrative films, Tom Kalin’s award-winning, critically acclaimed work has been screened throughout the world. His films and videos are in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum, the Centre Georges Pompidou and MoMA. His first feature, Swoon, was awarded the Caligari Prize at Berlin, the Fipresci Prize in Stockholm and Best Cinematography at Sundance. It was named one of the top 100 American Independent films by the British Film Institute. His film, Savage Grace, premiered in Cannes, was opening night film in Zurich and screened at festivals including Sundance, Stockholm, London and Tribeca. As a producer his films include I Shot Andy Warhol and Go Fish. His short videos and installations include They are lost to vision altogether, Third Known Nest, Every Wandering Cloud, Tigers and From Silence. Kalin is currently collaborating with musician Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) on an evening of live music and film and developing several feature projects.

Pat McCabe
Pat McCabe is an Irish novelist, his work includes The Butcher Boy (1992), a black comedy narrated by a disturbed young slaughterhouse worker, which won the Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Fiction; The Dead School (1995), an account of the misfortunes that befall two Dublin teachers; and Breakfast on Pluto (1998), the disturbing tale of a transvestite prostitute who becomes involved with Republican terrorists. The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction. He lives in Sligo.

Benedict Schlepper-Connolly
Benedict Schlepper-Connolly is a composer based in Dublin, Ireland. Benedict writes for a diverse range of musical forms, including chamber music, orchestral works, solo performance projects and music for dance and film. Musicians and groups he has worked with in recent years include the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the sean nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, the Crash Ensemble, the Nieuw Ensemble, Ensemble Klang, Modelo 62, Ensemble Avalon, Slagwerk den Haag, Resurgam, and the choreographer and dancer Liv O’Donoghue.

Paul Muldoon [Literary Advisor]
Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet and professor of poetry, as well as an editor, critic, and translator.
Muldoon is the author of twelve major collections of poetry, including One Thousand Things Worth Knowing (2015), Maggot (2010), Horse Latitudes (2006), Moy Sand and Gravel (2002), Hay (1998), The Annals of Chile (1994), Madoc: A Mystery (1990), Meeting the British (1987), Quoof (1983), Why Brownlee Left (1980), Mules (1977) and New Weather (1973). In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, he has received an American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature, the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry, the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the 2004 Shakespeare Prize, the 2005 Aspen Prize for Poetry, and the 2006 European Prize for Poetry. He has been described by The Times Literary Supplement as "the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War."

Presented by the National Concert Hall supported by the Irish Independent, Today FM and Yeats2015