top of page
3.png

"harrowing and haunting...powerful" 
- Village Voice USA

Drama

Adult Themes

Australian Premiere

​​

Soldier Songs - 'an opera in the form of a song cycle' - depicts that solitude of a soldier’s experience:  one isolated baritone stands alone in this piece and reflects a single vulnerability that speaks for generations.

 

But more powerfully, Soldier Songs deals with the crisis of communicable experience:  the soldiers who return from war unable to bear witness to their chaotic memories.​​

​

​​

About the music:

​

David T. Little's SOLDIER SONGS features a powerful and eclectic musical score that blends elements of classical, rock, and electronic music. The composition incorporates driving rhythms, jagged electric strings, and primal drums, alongside orchestrated textures that vividly illustrate the soldier's experiences.

 

Little's versatile writing requires skilfull transitioning between hard-edged rock and complex harmonic language. The score includes minimalist chirps, Hendrix-style strings, and nods to Aaron Copland's Americana. This kaleidoscopic approach effectively conveys the emotional intensity and psychological complexity of the soldier's journey.

​

​

About the words:

​

​The libretto of Soldier Songs comes directly from interviews composer David T. Little did with family and friends who served in various combats throughout the last fifty years; soldiers with the courage to tell their story.

 

Connecting their various experiences, from childhood fascination with war to the nightmares that haunt the return to civilisation, David writes an insistent closed-mouth hum: as if the soldier were a ticking time-bomb, the stories of his experience buried just under the surface and yearning, but unable, to emerge.

​

First Performance: 2006

Commissioned by Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble

When

Wed 26 Feb  7pm

Where

Panarcadian Festival Theatre

570 Victoria Street

North Melbourne

TBA...(MELB)

Duration

60 mins without interval

Tickets

Pre-sale:

October 7

General Bookings:

October 14

​

Premium: $109

General Admission: $99

Concession: $79

Music and Words

David T. Little

Music director

TBA

Baritone

Hadleigh Adams

Sound Engineer

TBA

Other performances

1.png

p r i s m

Doting mother Lumee and her daughter Bibi live isolated, in a pristine​ sanctuary. Bibi and Lumee are trying to protect each other from the danger that lurks outside their door.

​

 

Winner of a Pulitzer Prize in 2019, and written just before #metoo, p r i s m explores the elasticity of memory after the trauma of a sexual assault, and the extent to which we will go to try to make it all better.

2.png

Sanatorium Express

Arriving at a peculiar resort-sanatorium, a woman's plans for weight loss in a weekend to save her marriage are hilariously derailed, when her husband unexpectedly checks in.  Lured by a Healer with a reputation for a quick fix, an array of unique and entertaining characters struggling with the complexities of modern life soon realise their healing is not as straightforward as they thought.

​

Poking fun at the wellness industry and our contemporary obsessions with perfection, flaws and fads, Sanatorium Express takes us on a surprisingly sentimental and uplifting journey.

bottom of page