This month sees Dubliners get a chance to see Elvis Costello and The Brodsky Quartet’s groundbreaking 1992 work, The Juliet Letters, brought to life in in a special live performance by Duke Special and The Fews Ensemble.
The Juliet Letters explores themes of love, loss, longing, and heartbreak, creating a world where passion and despair are laid bare, it promises a deeply emotional, immersive, and captivating experience for audiences. The Juliet Letters was inspired by a newspaper item about a Veronese academic who had taken on the task of replying to letters addressed to ‘Juliet Capulet’, and from the fact that Costello and the Brodsky’s were fans of each other’s music.
Just as Elvis Costello and The Brodsky Quartet’s 1992 collaboration brought together a musician born of the punk explosion and a quartet from the classical tradition, so with this new concert interpretation which pairs two contemporary greats of Northern Irish music: indie baroque pop romanticist, Duke Special, and the innovative Fews Ensemble, led by Joanne Quigley-McParland.
This evocative work weaves soaring melodies with rich, dark drama, delving into the complexities of the human condition through imagined letters addressed to Juliet Capulet, the tragic heroine of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
“We wanted to explore the under-used combination of voice and string quartet, but were anxious to avoid that junkyard named ‘Cross-Over’,” Costello has said of the work. “It also conforms to, and occasionally upsets, the structures found in our respective disciplines and indiscipline!”
That spirit of commitment and exploration will be found in these new renditions, as Duke Special’s distinctive, soulful voice and theatrical flair blend with the masterful, elegant accompaniment of The Fews Ensemble.
The concert will take place in the Sugar Club Dublin on Sunday December 8th. Members of the Fews Ensemble performing include Joanne Quigley-McParland (violin), Thomas Jackson (violin), Rich Hadwen (viola) and David McCann (cello).
Further information, tickets and booking here.
