Lyric Fest premieres a new Walt Whitman setting by Melissa Dunphy | The Boghouse is featured on ABC's Localish

 

So much news! Good lord, 2019 is already turning out to be an incredibly busy year. Some of the highlights so far:             A new commission for the women of Resonance Ensemble (Portland), LISTEN is a two-movement SSAA work that sets testimony from Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford. The sold-out premiere was one of the most emotional performances I've ever attended and was so popular, they are repeating the program on May 18. Keep your eyes peeled also for a studio recording Resonance are releasing later this year. (Know any game SSAA choirs who might want to sing this work? Connect me to them!)             Work is an SATB choral work I wrote for the Bradley Hills Presbyterian Chancel Choir via the Donald Sinclair Sutherland Endowment, and sets text from Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet.              American DREAMers, which includes lyrics from five Americans who were brought to this country as children, has been sung by choirs all over the country. Next month, look for a performance by Kansas City's Musica Vocale, and later this year the commissioning choir PhilHarmonia will release a studio recording              The last work I wrote during my residency at the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, Suite Remembrance, has just been published by EC Schirmer, and a studio recording for Regent Records is currently being mixed and mastered. If you're local to Philadelphia or New York City, come out this week for a premiere I could not be more excited about! I was commissioned for the first time to write an art song for Lyric Fest, and I am thrilled with what I've heard in rehearsal. Come, My Tan-Faced Children recontextualizes some of Walt Whitman's Civil War poetry to create a call to arms that is extremely relevant to social issues of the 21st Century, and it will be performed by the incredible mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis (honestly, I can't stress enough how much you need to hear this voice in person) at the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia on Saturday April 6, and the Church of St. Matthew & St. Timothy in NYC on Tuesday April 9. I had the opportunity to sit down in my apartment with Lyric Fest co-artistic director Suzanne Duplantis a couple of weeks ago to talk about writing this work, and if you're interested particularly in how political and social justice concerns informed my composition process when dealing with this text, I think you'll find this audio interview interesting: Meet Composer Melissa Dunphy (and hear about her setting of Walt Whitman) LYRIC FEST CONCERT DETAILS PHILADELPHIA Saturday, April 4, 4:00PM Academy of Vocal Arts, 1920 Spruce St, Philadelphia, PA 19103 Tickets $25 online / $30 at the door / $10 students NEW YORK CITY Tuesday, April 9, 7:00PM Church of St. Matthew & St. Timothy, 26 W 84th St, New York, NY 10024 Tickets $10 at the door / free for students with ID THE BOGHOUSE GETS NATIONAL PRESS COVERAGE In addition to all this music news, the Dunphys have continued their amateur archaeology adventures with their new podcast The Boghouse. We've been charting in the top 200 on the Apple Podcasts in the Arts category, and we caught the eye of producers at 6ABC news, who created this great feature for the program Localish. Click to watch the full segment on ABC. There's so much more coming down the pike! But you'll have to listen to the podcast for all the gory and fascinating historical details. The Boghouse is available for free on all podcasting platforms now—subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, or Spotify. Find out more

Copyright © 2019 Mormolyke Press, All rights reserved.

A magic theater, pedophiles, archaeology, and American history

 

Can you dig it? Against their better judgment, the Dunphys have become podcasters, and it's a hit. The Boghouse tells a wild true story: in 2015, Matt and Melissa Dunphy spent their life savings buying a magic theater in Philadelphia ... owned by a pedophile. The next year, they discovered treasure underground on the site, and accidentally became amateur archaeologists. Download the first episodes now on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or Spotify. The Future Hannah Callowhill Stage One day, 103 Callowhill Street will become a small multi-disciplinary performing arts venue called the Hannah Callowhill Stage, but the Dunphys soon discovered there was more to this adventure than simply real estate (although the real estate deal was exciting enough). After telling this gobsmacking story in person literally hundreds of times, they've recorded a podcast with all the sordid, gory, historically fascinating details. "Funny, engrossing, a wild ride ⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆" The Boghouse is already winning rave reviews and 5-star ratings, and the top 100 charts on iTunes. Listen now and help support an independent podcast about the creation of an independent theater, by two crazy thirty-somethings trying to balance all of this chaos with careers in e-commerce and music composition. Learn more Episode 1: Introduction Melissa and Matt consider investing in a live/work space and discover a real estate listing for a theater with a sordid past. Listen on iTunes... Episode 2: Money Melissa and Matt are frustrated by architects and banks. Will they prevail? Listen on iTunes... Episode 3: Demolition Melissa and Matt tear down walls and make surprising discoveries. Listen on iTunes... Episode 4: Dig Melissa and Matt unearth old pottery, and make a strong effort to stop unearthing old pottery. Listen on iTunes... New episodes of The Boghouse are recorded every Sunday. Like and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for updates, pictures, and extras, and don't forget to review and subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform!

Copyright © 2019 Mormolyke Press, All rights reserved.

Podcasting is the new blogging: Announcing The Boghouse

Yes, it's true, I rarely blog anymore. However, this past week, Matt and I decided to launch a podcast instead: The Boghouse, which follows our adventures buying a magic theater from a pedophile, discovering treasure, and becoming amateur archaeologists (in between being a composer and working in e-commerce, respectively). If you've ever read this blog (or the sister blog at www.thehannah.org), you know some of the story, but this is more fun because we're telling it together. Plus we swear a lot more.

Go check it out on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, etc. Rate/review/subscribe if you like what you hear (you should!) and tell all your friends.

 

Watch the latest performance of the Gonzales Cantata Last month, the Gonzales Cantata was given its West Coast premiere by the Mid-Columbia Mastersingers, conducted by Justin Raffa, in Richland, Washington. Click below to watch the entire performance now: The Mid-Columbia Mastersingers present Melissa Dunphy's The Gonzales Cantata Bonus: pre-concert talk with former US Attorney John McKay Also available on YouTube is a pre-concert discussion between composer Melissa Dunphy, conductor Justin Raffa, and former US Attorney John McKay, who was fired by US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in 2006. His dismissal, which is referenced in the Cantata ("What is One to Think?") was one of the catalysts for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings which led to Gonzales's eventual resignation.  The Gonzales Cantata: pre-concert discussion Find Out More Coming soon Melissa's latest choral work, American DREAMers, commissioned by PhilHarmonia, sets poetry and texts by Americans who came to this country as children. Thanks to the generosity of supporters, American DREAMers will be premiered at a free concert at Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral on June 2; you can support this work by donating at YouCaring.

Copyright © 2018 Mormolyke Press, All rights reserved.

Hervararkviða, or the Incantation of Hervor

You might find this difficult to believe, but I am primarily a composer and not an amateur historian or archaeologist or theater builder/owner or whatever. To prove it, this year I wrote some music? Actually quite a lot of music, if I put it all together, although I am still way behind in my goals, because I will never be good enough and yes I do hate myself for it although I am trying to work on unrealistic expectations of myself in therapy thank you.

One of these pieces is being officially birthed into the world today (that is, Wednesday, December 21, 2016)! And if you are in the Philadelphia area, you are welcome to come witness its emergence in person, which will be beautiful and non-bloody and not at all like a real human birth. This piece was conceived way back in January, when I was approached by dreamy mezzo-soprano Maren Montalbano, she of the gorgeous silver curls and even prettier velvety silver voice, whom I knew through her work at Opera Philadelphia (we performed together in ANDY: A Popera),  Choral Arts Philadelphia (I wrote O Oriens for them last Christmas), and Twitter.

Murder and Mayhem in the Messuages Next Door

If a property has been around for long enough, someone is going to die on it. Given enough human habitation, the chances that someone has been murdered on the premises are pretty decent, because humans are shitty creatures that murder each other a lot. Some locations, though, seem to attract violent crime more than others. While I was researching the history of 103 Callowhill Street (a.k.a. 21 Callowhill Street before the Ordinance of 1856), I noticed something odd: in the Philadelphia newspapers of the late 19th Century, there was a disproportionate number of mentions of the houses next door, 105 Callowhill Street and 400 Front Street (the corner of Front and Callowhill Streets). As it turns out, during this period my poor building was sandwiched between a flophouse and a saloon in one of the worst parts of Philadelphia.

As an aficionado of true crime since puberty, I want to bookend this history with two contemporary Philadelphia-related incidents which became media sensations, one that you probably haven't heard of and one that you probably have (or at least, will probably hear of soon). Public fascination with murder and true crime was really coming into its own in America around this time.

Engraving of Antoine Probst, from The Life, Confession and Atrocious Crimes of Antoine Probst

Benjamin Mifflin, shady-ass property developer

I have more things to blog about than I have time to blog, but here's a quick hilarious thing.

If you have been following closely my research into 103 Callowhill Street and you have a very good memory, you might recall that in my first history post, I wondered if the original deed contained a measurement error. In 1745, the width of the property was listed as 20 feet, but in all subsequent deeds, the property is described as 16 feet wide. Why? After hunting down early deeds for the lot next to ours, I finally have an answer!

Benjamin Mifflin's original four lots on the north side of Callowhill Street, 1745.

Construction at the Hannah, and a pipkin

The Hannah Callowhill Stage is currently a roofless construction site that cannot be described as a building, let along a theater, without some intense and stubborn imagination. Things are going swimmingly, though, and I don't necessarily mean because a recent deluge left a pond-sized puddle of water in the middle of the janky slab.

History of the Hannah: Cyberstalking Daniel Williams, Part 3 of 3

Slavery

Click here for Part 1 of Daniel Williams's story.
Click here for Part 2 of Daniel Williams's story.

Before we take up Daniel's story again, a brief photographic interlude! Back in Part 1, I mentioned the Schuylkill Fishing Company, an exclusive men's social club (drunken pseudo-Masonic frat) which Daniel Williams was a member of from at least 1760. According to their wiki page, they erected a monument on the banks of the Schuylkill River in 1947, so on a whim, Matt and I stopped on the way home and found it. Spoiler: from the road, it kind of looks like an electrical junction box, to be honest. And the elements have not been kind to the engraving, which reads:

History of the Hannah: Cyberstalking Daniel Williams, Part 2 of 3

The Revolutionary War

Click here for Part 1 of Daniel Williams's story.

When we left off, Daniel Williams was a successful merchant who bought 103 Callowhill Street on March 6, 1770. For the next part of the story, in which I look at Daniel and his family's lives during the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), I first want to backtrack slightly.

Daniel and his family were Quakers, and the Revolutionary War posed a problem for Quakerism because one of the major tenets of the religion is strict pacifism. Quakers could be kicked out of the society, aka disunited, aka disowned, aka "read out" during Monthly Meeting, for engaging in any kind of conflict or warlike training or even just for carrying a weapon; their philosophy was that any and all violence is wrong, even for the purpose of self defense.