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These pages contain program notes written for Redwood
Symphony. You are free to use the information in your own program
notes. If you quote me directly, please attribute it. Thanks!
These notes were edited, amended, and otherwise
improved by Eric Kujawsky, Peter Stahl, and others.
Barbara Heninger
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Jake Heggie
The Confession
Jake
Heggie (b.
1961)
began studying piano with Ernst Bacon, and studied both piano and composition at
UCLA. His earliest works were for piano, but his performances as piano
accompanist for various singers helped hone his skills as a vocal composer. He
won the Schirmer American Art Song Competition in 1995,
and wrote two song cycles on commission for mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade (Paper
Wings,
1997, and Songs
to the Moon,
1998).
He wrote Dead
Man Walking while
composer-in-residence at the San Francisco Opera in 1998,
with acclaimed playwright Terence McNally as librettist. The opera premiered in
San Francisco in 2000.
Dead
Man Walking
is based on both the film and the book of the same name. The author, Sister
Helen Prejean, a vocal opponent of the death penalty, wrote of her friendship
with the convicted murderer Joseph DeRocher, whom she befriended in the months
before he was executed for stabbing a young woman to death. The opera follows
both Sister Helen and Joseph as they struggle with the issues of guilt and
forgiveness in the days before his death. “The Confession” is the emotional
climax of the work, as Joseph finally confesses his actions to Sister Helen and,
though expecting rejection and revulsion, asks her for forgiveness.
February 9, 2008
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