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Event Details

Such Sweet Thunder

  • 03 May 2014
  • 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM
  • Gesa Power House Theatre
Duke Ellington and William Shakespeare Collide in “Such Sweet Thunder”

Columbia REA and Shakespeare Walla Walla present “Such Sweet Thunder” with one performance at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 3. This unique production will feature the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra (SRJO) performing Duke Ellington’s Such Sweet Thunder suite in the historic Gesa Power House Theatre.

“Such Sweet Thunder” brings together a collaboration of artists and educators. Shakespeare Walla Walla is engaging local actors who will, under the direction of Kevin Loomer, Director of Theatre Arts at Walla Walla Community College, introduce each musical movement with excerpts from the Shakespearean texts that inspired the music.

Whitman College jazz piano instructor Gary Hemenway will host a jazz/improvisation master class for local music students featuring SRJO Co-Artistic Director and UW music professor (and onstage saxophone player) Dr. Michael Brockman, and assisted by retired Whitman College professor David Glenn (playing trombone during the performance).

“We continue to focus attention on Shakespeare in the modern age because of great breadth of his influence,” says Ron Williams, executive director of Shakespeare Walla Walla. “This beautiful melodic suite of Ellington compositions that inspires musicians today was directly inspired by the poetry of the Bard; and so it goes, on and on.”

Written in 1957, Duke Ellington’s masterful jazz suite Such Sweet Thunder not only takes its name from Shakespeare), but its themes and topics, too. “…the skies, the fountains, every region near seemed all one mutual cry. I never heard so musical a discord, such sweet thunder. (Hippolyta: Act IV, Scene 1, A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

The suite’s twelve sections include eleven instrumental portraits of characters from Shakespeare, followed by a final piece evoking Shakespeare himself. Working with his long-time collaborator Billy Strayhorn, Ellington created the suite soon after he and his band appeared at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada.

“Such Sweet Thunder” is presented as part of the 2014 Shakespeare Walla Walla Mainstage Season, which continues in August with the Seattle Shakespeare Company productions of “Julius Caesar” and “Two Gentlemen of Verona”.

Tickets are $36 and $32 (Students $9) for the single performance on Saturday, May 3 at 7:30 p.m. and can be purchased at www.shakespearewallawalla.org or by calling the Box Office at 509.529.6500 (call for Group Discounts).

Contact us at webmaster@artwalla.com

130 Rose Street #102

PO Box 2192

Walla Walla, WA 99362


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