A MUSICAL LEGACY: Performances of “MEMOIR” at McCarter Theatre on April 18 and 19 will celebrate the 41-year teaching career of Princeton University music professor Steven Mackey.
McCarter Theatre, in partnership with the Department of Music at Princeton, will present MEMOIR, a theatrical musical work by GRAMMY Award-winning composer and William Shubael Conant Professor of Music Steven Mackey, and director Mark DeChiazza. Performances take place at McCarter’s Berlind Theatre on Saturday, April 18, at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 19, at 2 p.m.
MEMOIR explores the tumultuous 20th century through the eyes of a first-generation American woman in pursuit of the American Dream — drawn directly from the unpublished memoir of the composer’s mother, Elaine Mackey. Scored for string quartet, percussion duo, and narrator, the piece is, in Mackey’s own words, “hard to describe — maybe opera without singing or story-telling wrapped in music.”
The work speaks in three layers: the narrator’s text, a musical layer representing her inner emotional life, and a more playful layer portraying the physical world around her — from a mimeograph machine to a Model T Ford. The production features narrator Natalie Christa Rakes, Aeolus Quartet, and arx duo.
Mackey describes MEMOIR as a work he could not have written earlier in his career. “There is a level of vulnerability I would not have tolerated as a 50-year-old mid-career composer,” he said. “By the time I became eligible for Medicare, and started working on MEMOIR, holding back seemed stingy, being ‘cool’ had lost its appeal. In short… I have a story to tell and not forever to tell it. What am I waiting for?”
The narration, taken directly from his mother’s unpublished memoir, becomes by the work’s end something close to the composer’s own.
“There is something both frightening and exciting about presenting such a personal work in front of my hometown crowd,” Mackey said. “The McCarter Theatre and the Department of Music are collaborating to bring one of my most ambitious — and certainly most personal — works to Princeton, marking the eve of my retirement.”
Dan Trueman, chair of the Department of Music and Professor of Music, commented, “Steve is a living legend. At Princeton, he served as chair of the Department of Music for seven years and was a driving, inspirational force behind major transformations of the field of composition — it is safe to say that Steve is one of the most revered and influential composers of his generation.”
Trueman also noted the significance of the McCarter collaboration. “It’s exciting that we are able to celebrate Steve’s retirement at McCarter. His staged, narrated chamber work is touching and powerful, and will fit beautifully on the Berlind stage. This is a great example of the kind of collaboration between McCarter and the Department of Music that we have been seeing in recent years and imagine seeing more of in the future. McCarter can be a compelling ‘picture window’ between university and community, where the curtain is pulled to reveal some of what happens on campus and connections between people and ideas are cultivated. I can’t wait for the curtain to go up on MEMOIR.”
Included with each performance are “Scholar’s Insights” talks. Mackey will share his personal journey in creating MEMOIR at the beginning of each performance, integrated into the show experience. The full event, including Mackey’s remarks and the show, runs 90–95 minutes. with no intermission. Scholar’s Insights is a part of McCarter’s Arts & Ideas program, which links Princeton University scholarship to the work on stage. It is co-sponsored by the Princeton University Humanities Council.
For tickets, visit mccarter.org or call (609) 258-2787.