Category:   COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY
Composer:   Jocelyn Hagen
Arranger:   NA
Publisher:   Graphite Publishing
Edition:   –
Voicing:   SATB divisi
Setting:   a cappella

Reviewer:   

Bert Pinsonneault
University of St. Thomas
R&R Chair College & University

Minnesota choral conductors are no stranger to composer Jocelyn Hagen, but this work deserves special highlight: music is especially evocative when composers employ extreme sensitivity to the natural rhetorical stress of language and poetry, letting a story unfold for the listener. In this piece, Hagen reveals herself to be a true master of text-setting parallel to a Samuel Barber or Dominick Argento. This text comes from the moment in Shakespeare’s Hamlet when Queen Gertrude delivers the bad news to Laertes of his sister’s death. A complement to programs exploring loss, deprivation, and isolation.

Link:  https://graphitepublishing.com/product/ophelia/


Link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ibBX7CUZGo