performances on campus, but an upcoming concert developed in the
classics department might be among the most uniqueever.
The public is invited on Tuesday evening, February 15, to a concert by
a student string band interpreting the music of ancient Greek drama.
The concert begins at 8 p.m. in Tyler-Tallman Hall of Sloan Music
Center, and there is no charge to attend.
The project began last summer as a Davidson Research Initiative
project between Keyne Cheshire, Professor of Classics, and Jon
Springfield '11. Cheshire had just completed two years' work on a new
English translation of Trachiniae ("Women of Trachis"), a play by the
ancient Greek dramatist Sophocles. The Trachiniae is one of just seven
surviving plays written by Sophocles in the fifth century BC.
In the time of the ancient Greeks, dramas such as the Trachiniae were
performed in front of crowds of thousands of people representing all
social strata. Cheshire believes that too many translatorstoday aren't
true to the original popular appeal of Greek drama, and present the
works in high style that is not appealing to audiences.
Cheshire was frustrated at the staid way ancient tragedies are
typically performed today, noting that the long monologues in most
translations test the patience of both the audience and the actors.
He crafted his translation to be relevant and entertaining to a modern
audience, incorporating vernacular, colloquial English dialogue. For
example, the character Heracles is renamed"Herman Leroy Kilman," his
wife, Deianira, is renamed "Deanna Kilman." Zeus has been recast as
God, and the name of the setting, Trachis, was changed to "Jagged
Rock." Cheshire titled his translated drama The Passion of Herman
Kilman in part to highlight points of correspondence between this
tragedy and the story of Christ. Heracles was the son of Zeus, the
Greeks' supreme god, and the conclusion of the play focuses on his
extraordinary suffering prior to his death.
Greek dramas also included musical accompaniment, and Cheshire wanted
to include that in his translation. But while the original text of
Trachiniae was available for translation, no record remains of the
music that accompanied it. So Cheshire discussed the idea with
Springfield, a political science major from Raleigh and talented
musician. Springfield liked the idea, and the two collaborators were
able to secure funding for their work from the Davidson Research
Initiative (DRI).
Springfield brought an impressive musical background to the effort. He
has played violin since his childhood, and has studied piano, guitar,
and banjo. He performedwith the Davidson College Symphony Orchestra
for two years, and co-founded a locally popular folk-rock group called
You and Your Effects.
Cheshire finalized the text translations before he and Springfield
began scoring music for eight songs in July. They decided to employ a
frontier folklore style of sound, and listened to a lot of Gillian
Welch, Johnny Cash, and Bill Monroe in their studies. They were
careful to create music that would elicit the emotions that Sophocles
had most likely intended. Springfield explained, "The eight songs have
a definite arc across the play, transitioning from folk music
toincreasingly universal and surreal instrumentation as the hero
approaches his eventual demise."
After they agreed on the rough sketches, Springfield recorded the
individual parts himself one at a time (vocals, guitar, banjo, bass,
fiddle, and percussion). His friends Sarah Connette '11 and Michael
Mellody '11 lent their vocal talents to several of the songs.
Springfield said, "The collaborative process was challenging but
definitely rewarding. Dr. Cheshire and I each had our visions for the
project, and finding compromise even for single lines of lyric often
took several sessions of long discussion. But the final product is
definitely better than anything we could have produced as individuals.
Having almost constant access to his creative input was a lot of fun."
The presentation of the work on February 15 will be the first full,
staged performance of the work. For more information about it, call
919-306-1520.
Davidson is a highly selective independent liberal arts college for
1,800 students located 20 minutes north of Charlotte in Davidson, N.C.
Since its establishment in 1837 by Presbyterians, the college has
graduated 23 Rhodes Scholars and is consistently regarded as one of
the top liberal artscolleges in the country. Through The Davidson
Trust, the college became the first liberal arts institution in the
nation to replace loans with grants in all financial aid packages,
giving all students the opportunity to graduate debt-free. Davidson
competes in NCAA athletics at the Division I level, and a longstanding
Honor Code is central to student life at the college.
