“What makes this project different,” says Usher, “is it’s a pastiche form that is a modern application of the very ancient technique of centonizing, or creating a cento — which means a patchwork — so I draw from all sorts of famous poems by ancient authors.” Those include Sappho, Virgil, Archilochus, and Seneca, among many others. The characters sing sections of poems and texts as lines of dramatic plots.”

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The entirety of the first scene of NERON KAISAR, called “Incipit,” will be performed in Oxford (UK) at the Jacqueline du Pré Music Hall, St. Hilda’s College, in conjunction with the Archive for the Performance of Greek and Roman Drama’s colloquium “Performing Epic into the 21^st Century.” For more information see:

http://www.apgrd.ox.ac.uk/events/2013/12/performing-epic-into-the-twenty-first-century

Event: September 18,^, 2014; pre-concert lecture by librettist M. D. Usher at 4:30, followed by performance and discussion.

The piece is scored for 4 solo voices (Nero, Agrippina, Seneca, the Sibyl) and chorus (Senate/Muses), and will be presented with harp and piano accompaniment, under the direction of Gulliver Ralston.

 For more information, contact musher@uvm.edu.