by composer Sarah Kirkland Snider featuring vocalist Shara Nova

April 26, 2025, at The James Theater

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ONE PERFORMANCE ONLY: Music and literature festival will feature Grammy-nominated artist Shara Nova in the contemporary multimedia song cycle, Penelope, written by Sarah Kirkland Snider and Ellen McLaughlin

Entering our 15th season, and our first since moving from June to April, MusicIC is delighted to present Sarah Kirkland Snider’s, Penelope, a song cycle for mezzo-soprano, string quintet, percussion, and electronics. As Iowa City’s premiere classical chamber music festival, MusicIC, presented by the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature, continues its mission of innovative programming, exploring the intersection of music and literature.

Inspired by Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey, Snider’s website describes Penelope: “The song cycle, written in 2009 for Shara Nova and Ensemble Signal, is based on a music-theater monodrama written by Snider and playwright Ellen McLaughlin for the J. Paul Getty Center in 2008. In the work, a woman’s husband appears at her door after an absence of 20 years, suffering from brain damage. A veteran of an unnamed war, he doesn’t know who he is and she doesn’t know who he’s become. While they wait together for his return to himself, she reads to him from the Odyssey, and in the journey of that book, she finds a way into her former husband’s memory and the terror and trauma of war. is a meditation on memory, identity, and what it means to come home. Suspended somewhere between art song, indie rock, and chamber folk, the music of Penelope moves organically from moments of elegiac strings-and-harp reflection to dusky post-rock textures with drums, guitars and electronics, all directed by a strong sense of melody and a craftsman’s approach to songwriting.”

Snider writes music of direct expression and vivid narrative that has been hailed as “rapturous” (The New York Times), “groundbreaking” (The Boston Globe), and “ravishingly beautiful” (NPR). Recently named one of the “Top 35 Female Composers in Classical Music” by The Washington Post, Snider’s works have been commissioned and/or performed by the New York Philharmonic; Boston Symphony Orchestra; Cleveland Orchestra; San Francisco Symphony; National Symphony Orchestra; Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Shara Nova is a Grammy-nominated composer, vocalist, and producer, and has released six albums under the moniker My Brightest Diamond. Nova starred in the Tony Award Winning musical “Illinoise” on Broadway, directed by Justin Peck, co-written by Jackie Sibblies Drury with music by Sufjan Stevens, with a live album released on Nonesuch Records. Many artists have sought out Nova’s unique vocal work, including David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, The Decemberists, Steve Mackey, and David Lang.

She will be joined in the Iowa City performance by other ensemble performers include MusicIC’s Founding Artistic Director, violinist Tricia Park, and a cast of University of Iowa faculty members and students, led by Conductor Kenny Lee, Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Iowa.

One performance will be held on April 26, 2025, at 7:30 p.m., at The James Theatre at 213 N. Gilbert St. in Iowa City. Tickets are $35 for the general public and $20 for students. They are available. Click here to purchase.