Heffernan brings dorothy parker to solstice

Renowned vocalist Honor Heffernan and composer Trevor Knight bring 'The Whistling Girl' to Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, on Friday 18th September. Featuring music inspired by the poetry of the great Dorothy Parker, audiences can expect a darkly sardonic body of work in which the American wit and critic’s poetry is transported into the 21st century and given a sonic face-lift fusing ‘dirty’-cabaret, electronic-vaudeville, rock and jazz, combined with underscored original recordings of Parker’s voice.

The songs are a tribute to both the quality of Heffernan’s flexible and expressive vocals and the inventiveness of Knight’s settings. Knight cleverly makes Parker’s lyrics relevant to the modern world by blending them with musical styles that emerged later than the period of Parker’s flourishing in the 1920’s and later decades. It had echoes of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil, as well as some of the keyboards flourishes familiar to fans of Ray Manzarek of The Doors, a touch of Kraftwerk here, and Mark Knopfler there and Leonard Cohen somewhere else. That musical approach chimed well with a woman very much ahead of her time, as if the world was finally catching up.

There were spiky elements of freeform jazz in the intro, the discordance reflecting Parker’s quip that the first thing she did in the morning was brush her teeth and sharpen her tongue. The music was at times menacing and at other times playful.

The Whistling Girl will be supported by a band of top Irish musicians including Garvan Gallagher - bass, Tom Jamieson - drums, Ed Deane - guitar and Trevor Knight on keyboards. Tickets €16/€14 available from Box Office (046) 909 2300 or online www.solsticeartscnetre.ie

“I shall stay the way I am, because I do not give a damn!”

(Dorothy Parker)