The String Orchestra of Brooklyn in collaboration with Kettle Corn New Music present Penelope a 60-minute song cycle for female voice, chamber orchestra, and electronics, based on texts by playwright Ellen McLaughlin. It is also the name of the music-theater piece from which the song cycle was derived. Penelope the song cycle loosely tells the story of the theater work: A woman’s husband appears at her door after an absence of 20 years, suffering from brain damage. A veteran of a modern war, he doesn’t know who he is and she doesn’t know who he’s become. While they wait together for his return to himself, she reads him The Odyssey, and in the journey of that book, she finds a way into her former husband’s memory.

The String Orchestra of Brooklyn and Kettle Corn New Music are proud to team up to present Penelope in its tenth anniversary year!

Kettle Corn New Music presents music drawn from a broad range of styles and aesthetic backgrounds in an atmosphere where it can be heard as both entertaining and thought-provoking. Kettle Corn New Music isn’t about a particular style or a group of composers. Rather, it’s an approach to listening that embraces music as both art and entertainment.