DOROTHEA

 

Dorothea at Theatre at the ACE Hotel, Los Angeles, 2021

Dorothea at Carnegie Hall, 2023

The latest project from composer, singer, bandleader and two-time Grammy-nominated recording artist Ted Hearne, Dorothea is the collaboration behind the kaleidoscopic and lush post-pop songs embodying the pathos-riddled, darkly funny poems of Dorothea Lasky and featuring the rhapsodic textures and heavenly vocals of “Los Angeles based polymath” electronic musician Eliza Bagg

"I have a very personal relationship to this poetry, and felt as we were collaborating on this project that a new spirit was emerging,” said Hearne. “It's the spirit of internal conflict, the struggle to unite the wildness of the true self with presentation in space and time: the snake eating its own tail, sometimes ribald and feral, sometimes self-loathing, sometimes narcissistic, always folding in on itself, somewhere between desperate to be earnest and genuine and unable to take itself seriously. This is the debut of that multi-headed spirit, Dorothea."

music by Ted Hearne
in collaboration with the musicians of Dorothea
text by Dorothea Lasky

Ted Hearne and Eliza Bagg, vocals
Nathan Koci, keyboards
Ron Wiltrout, drums
Ayanna Woods / Solomon Dorsey, bass
Rohan Chander, electronics
Taylor Levine, guitar
Ashley Bathgate, cello
Diana Wade, viola

This music was commissioned by Carnegie Hall, with additional commissioning support provided by SPCO Liquid Music Concert Series, Walker Art Center, and Linda and Stuart Nelson.
Special thanks to Kate Nordstrum.

Dorothea at Festival Musica, Strasbourg 2023

 

Dorothea at Carnegie Hall, 2023

Dorothea / In Your Mouth at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis 2019


A growing set of songs, Dorothea has appeared in the guise of In Your Mouth at the Walker Art Center (November 2019), in an exclusive concert video premiered at the Theatre at the ACE Hotel in DTLA with CAP-UCLA (May 2021), in concert at Festival Musica Strasbourg (September 2023) and in a solo show at Carnegie Hall (October 2023).


More information on recital and concert versions of songs from Dorothea may be found here, and vocal/piano scores for some songs may be purchased from Unsettlement Music.

 
Dorothea Lasky

DOROTHEA LASKY

Dorothea Lasky
Award-winning American poet Dorothea Lasky is the author of five collections of poetry and is co-editor of Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry (2013). Her poems have appeared in a number of prominent publications, including The New YorkerParis Review and American Poetry Review. Known for her colloquial, even slangy style and dramatic readings, Lasky acknowledges that “there is a kind of arrogance, a kind of supreme power, that when infused with a little real humility and expertise, makes a poem. Because the poem is always about the speaker.”

Dorothea cast and crew, Carnegie Hall 2023 (l to r: Thomas Dunn, Solomon Dorsey, Rachel Perry, Ash Tata, Nathan Koci, Ted Hearne, Ron Wiltrout, Taylor Levine, Rohan Chander, Eliza Bagg, Ashley Bathgate, Diana Wade)

AYANNA WOODS

DIANA WADE

TED HEARNE

ASHLEY BATHGATE

ELIZA BAGG

NATHAN KOCI

RON WILTROUT