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Elegies: A Song Cycle

Musical Revue / Cabaret, Drama

by William Finn

This intimate and moving remembrance of departed friends is by the Tony award-winning composer of Falsettos and A New Brain.

Elegies: A Song Cycle

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  • Audience
    Target Audience
    Adult, Teen (Age 14-18)

Details

Summary

Performed at Lincoln Center with a star-studded cast, this intimate and moving remembrance of departed friends is by the Tony award-winning composer of Falsettos and A New Brain. It pays tribute to a disparate group that includes impresario Joe Papp, actors Peggy Hewitt and Jack Eric Williams, a teacher, the Korean family who ran a deli frequented by Finn, relatives in New Jersey, friends, long-lost pets, and, in a moving sequence, Finn's mother. A three-song conclusion offers a tribute to the victims of 9/11. Each number captures poignant, often funny glimpses of life and death that sparkle with the narrative sophistication always apparent in Finn's work.

This musical evening is easy to produce, requiring only five good vocalists and a piano.

History
Elegies was first presented at Lincoln Center's Newhouse Theater in March of 2003. Directed by Graciela Daniele, the cast starred Christian Borle, Betty Buckley, Carolee Carmello, Keith Byron Kirk, and Michael Rupert. The production was recorded nearly complete and released on compact disc by Fynsworth Alley (distributed through Varèse Sarabande).
Keywords
Performing Groups
  • Time Period Contemporary
  • Cautions
    • Mild Adult Themes

Media

"The loquacious ghosts who hover through the nearly two dozen songs that make up William Finn's moving and exuberant song suite, ''Elegies,'' aren't the mournful twilit phantoms who haunt the typical popular song memorializing a loved one. These friends and colleagues of the composer's who have died over the last two decades are resurrected in playful lyrics bursting with internal rhymes that remember them in all their quirky vitality." - The New York Times

Videos

  • Brandon Uranowitz - "Mark's All Male Thanksgiving" youtube thumbnail

    Brandon Uranowitz - "Mark's All Male Thanksgiving"

  • Brandon Uranowitz, Corey Mach, Nic Rouleau - "Joe Papp" youtube thumbnail

    Brandon Uranowitz, Corey Mach, Nic Rouleau - "Joe Papp"

  • Elegies: A Song Cycle youtube thumbnail

    Elegies: A Song Cycle

Music

Music Samples

  • Vocal DemandsModerate
  • Orchestra Size Piano Only

Licensing & Materials

  • Licensing fees and rental materials quoted upon application.

Music Rentals

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Authors

William Finn

William Finn

William Finn is the writer and composer of Falsettos, for which he received two Tony Awards, Best Book of a Musical (with James Lapine) and Best Original Score. He has also written and composed In Trousers, March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland (Outer Critics Circle Award f ...

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