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CLASSICAL SONGS EXPLODE INSIDE AN ADVENTURE ON MAY 23RD

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Classical songs explode inside an adventure this coming Sunday, May 23rd at 3 pm EST when Odds Bodkin joins musicians live onstage in Philadelphia to perform the broadcast premiere of DANIKA THE ROSE. Get your livestream tickets here and tune in for this groundbreaking new performance work. As Sopranos Jazimina MacNeil and Sarah Shafer sing Dvorak’s beloved Moravian Duets in Czech, pianist Jonathan Ware wraps them both in music while Odds tells his original story in English and Brett Ashley Robinson plays the girl Danika. It’s a vivid, exciting and hauntingly artful display of virtuosity on many fronts. Don’t miss it!

Akin to Peter and the Wolf, only for adults, DANIKA THE ROSE tells the tale of a girl haunted by her beauty and the two men who violently compete for her affections, all set in a duchy along the Danube long ago. Hunting dogs, telepathic deer, storms of mayflies, deep fried eagles and talking dream birds add to the otherworldly nature of this adult fairy tale.

Tickets begin at $15. The live audience is sold out, but you can watch it from the comfort of home!

This concert is sponsored by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society and takes place on the stage of the American Philosophical Society next to Independence Hall.

Danika the Rose

Sunday, May 23rd at 3 pm EST

Live on the Web

 

 

Odds Bodkin’s DANIKA THE ROSE Livestreams May 23rd! Two Great Singers, A Renowned Pianist, An Up And Coming Actor and A Versatile Storyteller Together on Stage

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A Total Cast of Five

Joined by sopranos Jazimina MacNeil and Sarah Shafer, with Brett Ashley Robinson playing Danika and Jonathan Ware playing Dvorak on the piano, author Odds Bodkin performs his newest spoken-word story with music, live onstage in Philadelphia.

A blend of classical singing and live storytelling

Similar to Peter and the Wolf, the show features narrations deepened by what inspired the story itself: Dvorak’s Moravian Duets. These twenty-three songs, gloriously sung by MacNeil and Shafer, tell a tale of love and war mixed with jealousy, pride and privilege. Maximilian is the Duke; Danika is the stunningly beautiful peasant girl from the village who becomes his obsession; and Dano is the gamekeeper she loves. Elements of magical realism—ghost birds who speak and stags that fight like an army—add a supernatural magic to this new stage work.

Enjoy the broadcast debut Sunday, May 23rd at 3 pm EST. Six cameras will video livestream the performance! Get your tickets today!

Presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society.

DANIKA THE ROSE

May 23, 2021 at 3 pm EST on LIveStream

Starring Jazimina MacNeil, Sarah Shafer, Brett Ashely Robinson and Odds Bodkin. Music by Jonathan Ware.

DANIKA THE ROSE Classical Music Adult Fairy Tale Streams Live from Philly May 23rd

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

How did Danika the Rose, a new work soon to be live-streamed from the American Philosophical Society stage in Philadelphia, arrive on the American classical music scene?

It’s a story worth telling.

I’m Odds Bodkin, and I wrote Danika the Rose. Soon I’ll be performing it onstage with four other people for the Chamber Music Society of Philadelphia. It’s an adult fairy tale, interwoven with songs by Dvorak. Yes, I wrote it, but I didn’t do it alone. In the next few blog posts I’ll tell that curious story.

It begins back in the fall of 2018. I was visiting the Thoreau School in Concord, MA with my guitars and harp, warming up before the flood of schoolkids arrived for their performance, when a young woman stepped into the empty auditorium and walked up to the stage.

“Mr. Bodkin,” she said, “I have a proposition for you.”

Well, I thought, that’s quite the opening statement. “And you are?” She was quite pretty, late twenties, early thirties.

“Jazimina MacNeil. I’m a classical singer.”

Taking note of the name, I stopped playing my harp to listen.

“I’ve been a fan of yours for years,” she went on, “and I have a project I hope to interest you in.”

Obviously she’d learned I was performing here on this day. Well, you’ve got initiative and nerve, I thought, harping once again. “Go on, please.”

“A soprano friend and I sing Dvorak’s Moravian Duets together, but they’re little-known works.” I’d always loved Antonin Dvorak’s symphonies, especially From the New World, but wasn’t aware of any duets. “And so to bring them to a wider audience,” she went on, “I thought using them in a story might help.”

Ah, I thought, so that is why you are here, Jazimina.

“And I’d like you to write it,” she finished.

“You’re talking about a commissioned work.”

“Yes, I am. An adult fairy tale. One that uses all twenty-three duets. They’re all sung in Czech.”

“Any English translations?” I asked, assuming this would be for American audiences.

“Yes, but we’re not going to use them.”

A spoken-word fairy tale with obscure 19th Century art songs sung in Czech? Now there’s an easy sell to Americans, I thought.  But then again, I like fairy tales, psychic whirligigs that they are, and writing one would be fun, especially if I were going to be paid for it. Peter and the Wolf came to mind.

I gave her my email address and told her to send me a proposal. She left before I could speak with her again.

Little did I know what a work of art we would create.

——————————————————————

Philadelphia Chamber Music Society presents

Danika the Rose

 

With Jazimina MacNeil, Sarah Shafer, Jonathan Ware, Brett Ashley Robinson

and Odds Bodkin

 

Sunday, May 23, 2021 at 3 pm EST

 

For Livestream tickets visit Philadelphia Chamber Music Society

 

A WEEK FROM TODAY, A NEW WORK IS BORN: Danika the Rose

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

A WOMAN’S CREATIVE IDEA

As a noted opera and chamber music singer, Jazimina MacNeil already had Dvorak’s Moravian Duets for women’s voices. Born of 19th Century Europe, the duets sang of landlords, vineyards, lost love and agrarian life, all accompanied by piano, and all sung in Czech, Dvorak’s native language. What MacNeil didn’t have was a vehicle, a way to feature the duets more often in concert performances.

She realized she needed a story and a storyteller.

A TWO-YEAR COLLABORATION

Odds Bodkin was performing in Concord, MA when MacNeil introduced herself and her idea. It struck him as a good one, so she sent him a recording of 23 Moravian Duets with printed lyrics in Czech and English. After a listen, he got back to her, “I think there’s a story in here, but to create it, I’ll have to change the established order of the duets,” he said, wondering if this might be a sacred cow in the soprano business. “Go ahead,” she said. Delighted with the reply, he entered the smithy of my soul, as James Joyce called the writing process, and started hammering away at a new adult fairy tale.

Two years later, the result is the premiere of Danika the Rose, a tale that feels ancient, but with a very modern edge. On the surface, it’s the story of a young peasant girl and a duke who is obsessed with her beauty. But Danika also delves into hidden communications with animals, the fraught relationship between loving them and eating them, and how ecological systems, once out of balance, can cascade into disaster.

That, and how even in a world of magic, a love triangle can explode into jealous darkness.

A NEW WORK FOR THE CLASSICAL CANON

Sung by MacNeil and Sarah Shafer, those Moravian Duets, now in their new order in a fresh score crafted by MacNeil, comment upon and emotionally deepen the tale. Even so, on their own, the songs are lively, sonorous and beautiful–the power of a great symphonic melodist, condensed into brief pieces.

Have the singer and the storyteller created a new classic?

Come answer that question for yourself on Sunday, Oct. 6, 2019 at 4 pm in Bass Hall, Peterborough, NH. An ElectricEarthConcerts presentation.

Called “a consummate storyteller” by The New York Times, Bodkin will narrate and create characters and sounds during the performance, while Jazimina MacNeil and Sarah Shafer sing Dvorak’s glorious songs in Czech. Emely Phelps accompanies on piano.

TICKETS $30

 

ESCAPE FROM THE TOWER: Danika the Rose

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A NEW SPOKEN-WORD STORY

In Danika the Rose, Danika’s tower rises two hundred feet in the air, and once she’s imprisoned there, her single window with its view of the meadows, forest and river is all that she has. It’s a sheer drop to the hard earth far below, and so when the Cuckoos swoop into her window to warn her that the Duke is coming up the stairs with murder in his heart, Danika fears for her life. There is no escape.

“Throw a blanket out your window!” the Cuckoos cry in their strange, slow tongue. The Duke and his men are outside the door. She hears his angry voice as the key enters the lock. Wondering what good a blanket can do, she hurls one out the window anyway.

“The Duke yells, “Open it!” and the lock turns.

Just when he bursts in, Danika sees a marvel appear in the air beyond her window.

 

A PREMIERE EVENT

Danika the Rose, a new performance work that combines Dvorak’s Moravian Duets for women’s voices with Odds Bodkin’s adult fairy tale told live, premieres Sunday Oct. 6th at 4 pm at Bass Hall, Peterborough, New Hampshire.

The songs are sung by Jazimina MacNeil and Sarah Shafer, while Emely Phelps accompanies on piano and Odds Bodkin narrates and creates character voices and sounds.

Tickets are $30. Seating is limited. Grab your tickets today at ElectricEarthConcerts.

BEWARE THE POACHING LAWS: Feudal Rules in Danika the Rose

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AN ANCIENT TIME

When Danika first speaks to Dano the gamekeeper, he steps from the forest with a deer slung over his shoulders. Every day he supplies the Duke’s castle with venison.

In turn, she learns, Dano can hunt whatever he wishes in the Duke’s forest without falling afoul of the poaching laws. In the entire duchy, only Dano owns this privilege, which impresses her greatly. She has yet to fall in love with him, for it takes a summer’s conversations for her to do so, but once she does, her faithfulness to him drives the story of Danika the Rose.

That faithfulness is especially important during her three years in the Duke’s castle, when Dano has been sent away, and she goes from a pampered, privileged guest to a lonely prisoner in the tower.

PREMIERE OF A NEW PERFORMANCE WORK

As sopranos Jazimina MacNeil and Sarah Shafer interweave Dvorak’s Moravian Duets throughout, Odds Bodkin tells this original adult fairy tale with character voices and sound effects. Emely Phelps accompanies on grand piano. The story is told in English, the Duets are sung in Czech.

This new work of classical music and original storytelling premieres October 6, 2019 at 4 p.m. in Bass Hall in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Tickets are $30. Seating is limited. Buy your tickets today at ElectricEarthConcerts.

UPCOMING PREMIERE: DANIKA THE ROSE

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Classical Singers

Author and Storyteller Odds Bodkin’s Danika the Rose is an adult fairy tale, over an hour in length. Each episode introduces a sublime Moravian Duet sung by Jazimina MacNeil and Sarah Shafer, with piano accompaniments by Emely Phelps. Dvorak’s melodies are joyous in places, in others, haunting. It premieres in Peterborough, New Hampshire on Sunday, October 6th.

A Consummate Storyteller

The New York Times calls Odds Bodkin “a consummate storyteller.” Danika the Rose is his original tale.

A Compelling Story

Here’s part of the exciting new story he will tell:

In the shadow of a spoiled Duke’s castle, Danika, a peasant girl, thinks of the Duke’s gamekeeper as “Dano the Arrow,” because quiet, lithe and handsome Dano never misses when he draws his bow. He is a good man of the forest, but when Danika falls in love with him, her parents recoil.

“A cuckoo will sing at Christmas before you marry this lowly, woodsy man!” her father scoffs, because both he and her mother think that once Duke Maximilian sees Danika––she is preternaturally beautiful––he’ll want her for his duchess. Cuckoos in the Danube valley, of course, fly south in winter. They never sing at Christmas.

Soon enough Duke Maximilian sees her, and just as quickly he develops an obsession for her. He sends Dano away to war, and on a promise that he won’t touch her until she decides that she loves him, Danika reluctantly moves into the Duke’s castle.

He is cruel. Not to her, but to her animal friends, the deer and birds. Cluelessly, he abuses them to impress her and his efforts have the opposite effect. She cannot find a way to love him. Thorns grow over her heart, even as real thorns, giant ones, begin to choke the meadows.

Premiere on October 6th

Danika the Rose premieres Sunday, October 6, 2019 at 4 p.m. in Bass Hall in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Tickets are $30. Seating is limited. Grab your tickets today at ElectricEarthConcerts.

COMING IN OCTOBER: A STORY HIDDEN IN ANTONIN DVORAK’S SONG LYRICS

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THE MORAVIAN DUETS

Antonin Dvorak, the great 19th Century Czech composer, wrote sophisticated folk songs he named the Moravian Duets, after Moravia, a land along the Danube River. In translation, the lyrics tell of young lovers torn apart by parents and war, of farm life among meadows and forests owned by powerful landlords, and other details of agrarian life in those times. Songbirds figure in many of the songs.

A NEW WORK

However, these works aren’t particularly well-known to the public. Commissioned by singer Jazimina MacNeil and guided by these snippets of story, Odds Bodkin took on the task of crafting them together into a cohesive fiction. The result is Danika the Rose–over an hour of richly textured storytelling and music.

As with most fairy tales, there are innocents and a villain, but this story also digs deep into environmental awareness and ecosystems pushed out of balance, along with exploring human beings’ complex relationships with game animals.

 

PREMIERES IN OCTOBER

If you attend the adult premiere on Sunday Oct. 6th, 4 pm at Bass Hall in Peterborough, New Hampshire, expect a compelling story told in English interspersed with songs sung in Czech. Unless you know the Czech language, you’ll simply be absorbed by the sheer beauty of two renowned young sopranos singing Dvorak’s music, together with an accompanist.

 

Odds Bodkin’s Danika the Rose

With Jazimina MacNeil and Sarah Shafer

Emely Phelps at the piano

 

October 6, 2019 at 4 p.m. in Bass Hall in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

Tickets are $30. Seating is limited. Grab your tickets today at ElectricEarthConcerts.

There’s Something About Danika

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

There’s something about Danika––how she communicates with animals––that sets her apart from the other peasant girls. Deep into the story, after the furious and jealous Duke has locked her in the tower for striking him and calling him a liar to his face, a starling lands on her windowsill. In secret she teaches him human speech. But he is just one of the animals who help her. The pale Cuckoos do, too, guiding her in a dream to her true love, Dano, whom the Duke has sent to a far away war. And in the end, when a hundred stags lower their antlers and charge the Duke’s pack of killer dogs, the stags do so at Danika’s command.

Come listen to Odds Bodkin tell his original tale as mezzo soprano Jazimina MacNeil and soprano Sarah Shafer sing the glorious Moravian Duets of Antonin Dvorak, giving this story an interwoven musical life like no other.

Jazimina MacNeil                                      Sarah Shafer

 

If as a child you loved Peter and the Wolf, you’ll love Danika the Rose.

This new work of classical music and powerful storytelling premieres October 6, 2019 at 4 p.m. in Bass Hall in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

 

Tickets are $30. Seating is limited. Grab your tickets today at ElectricEarthConcerts.

A NEW FUSION OF STORYTELLING AND CLASSICAL MUSIC: Danika the Rose

Posted on by Odds Bodkin

I was onstage at the Thoreau School in Concord, MA, warming up my harp for a show when a young woman entered the empty auditorium and walked up to the stage. “Odds, my name is Jazimina MacNeil,” she said. “I’m a singer, and I have a proposition for you.”

Never having met her, I kept on playing. “Do tell,” I replied, intrigued. “What’s your name again?”

“Jazimina. I’m a mezzo-soprano.”

Interesting name, I thought. “Classical music?”

“Yes.” She and a colleague, a soprano, Sarah Shafer, Jazimina explained, specialize in singing Antonin Dvorak’s Moravian Duets, a little-known set of songs with lyrics in Czech, the preponderance of them for two women’s voices.

I’ve loved Dvorak’s music all my life, especially his New World Symphony. “So why are we talking?” I asked.

“I want you to write a fairy tale based on the duets,” she said. “One that you can tell, while Sarah and I sing the songs in between.”

I immediately thought of Serge Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf, a favorite of mine as a child. A combination of storytelling and classical music. This project could be similar, but new.

“Not many people know about these duets, but with a story,” she added, “they might love them as much as we do.”

Long story short, two years later we’re preparing summer rehearsals with pianist Emely Phelps for the premiere of Danika the Rose in October. It will take place in Peterborough, New Hampshire at Bass Hall, with the help of The Harris Center and Electric Earth Concerts.

 

Tickets are on sale.