Date: Wednesday 23 November, 7.30pm
Venue: Huddersfield Town Hall
Tickets: £26 | Concessions £20 | Under 30s (limited number available) £5
Please note: This event will not be part of the hcmf// 2022 Festival Saver
Film details: France 1928 | 88 mins | Cert PG. Director: Carl Theodor Dreyer
This November, Julia Holter will bring her long-awaited project, The Passion of Joan of Arc, to hcmf//. Joined by her band and the Chorus of Opera North, the composer-songwriter’s score reframes Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 film of the same name, mapping out the long-standing musical and historical influences that have persisted through Holter’s work.
Co-produced with Opera North, the Barbican and the Brudenell Social Club, we’re delighted to be bringing this project to hcmf//, and to be welcoming Holter to the festival for the first time. Her visionary approach to sound has been charted from the outward-reaching bedroom pop of her early records Tragedy and Ekstasis, right through to the often cerebral, always joyous arrangements of her later work. Even in its sparsest, most economical state, her work has always been teeming with life, and her most recent record, Aviary, burst out of the ‘album’ framework, offering a sprawling, choose-your-own-adventure experience with no deliberate beginning or end.
The Passion of Joan of Arc continues to evolve the scope and shape of Holter’s music, and brings her love of cinema to the fore of her work. She performed an earlier iteration of the score in 2017, and this new version unveils the project – which was initially scheduled for performances in 2020, ahead of the Covid-19 pandemic – in its final, most ambitious form. ‘She finds an immense sonic tapestry at her fingertips’, says Opera North, ‘and an opportunity to dig deeper into her longstanding fascination with the art, history and music of the medieval era’.
In Holter’s own words: ‘After a long wait, I’m so excited to finally be able to work with the Chorus of Opera North to perform my score to Carl Dreyer’s The Passion of Joan of Arc. I’ll be adapting a couple of relevant medieval chants for the ensemble, to take the melodies to a wild place that reflects the rapture and trauma of Falconetti’s Joan, with the help of bells, trumpet, synth, bagpipe, and more’.
You can read more about The Passion of Joan of Arc on Opera North’s website.
Commissioned and produced by Opera North Projects. Co-produced by the Barbican, the Brudenell Social Club and hcmf//.