*Shakespeare Reimagined* Tours Nebraska October 31 -- November 4

The Trans-Nebraska Players (a quintet featuring David Neely, Professor of Violin, and Clark Potter, Professor of Viola from UNL; the cello and flute professors from UNK; and a piano professor from Chadron State) have embarked on “Shakespeare Reimagined”, a concert which features arrangements of orchestra music inspired by Shakespeare performed simultaneously with texts from those plays spoken in and around the music. We have already performed a portion of the program at Churchill College Cambridge, UK, in Oct. of 2019, and we will perform the entire program four times in Chadron (Oct. 31), Scottsbluff (Nov. 1), Kearney (Nov. 3) and Lincoln (Nov. 4). The Lincoln performance will happen on Nov. 4 at 7:30 pm in the Westbrook Recital Hall (room 119 of Westbrook Music Building) on the UNL campus. The concert is free.

UNK Shakespeare scholar Marguerite Tassi has chosen the texts, and retired UNL Professor of Choral Activities James Hejduk will speak the texts along with the music of the Trans-Nebraska Players. The plays of Shakespeare have inspired so much fabulous music for symphony orchestra, but the great bulk of that music has no words of The Bard. This program aims to present a different twist by attempting a pairing of the two!

Featured music:

Arthur Sullivan’s “Bouree: and “Danse Grotesque” from Masquerade Suite from The Merchant of Venice

Edward Elgar’s “Interludes I and II” from Falstaff: Orchestral Study (with texts from The Merry Wives of Windsor and 2 Henry IV)

Henry Purcell’s “Chaconne” from The Fairy Queen (an adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

Mendelssohn’s “Overture” and “Nocturne” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Korngold’s “Garden Scene” from Much Ado About Nothing

Tchaikovsky’s “Love Theme” from Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

Photo: a publicity shot for the 1935 Warner Brothers A Midsummer Night's Dream, which extensively uses Mendelssohn's incidental music (as rearranged by Korngold).