Thecla [working title]

Co-sponsored by an NEA ArtWorks grant 

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Premiere: Planned for fall 2020, Scripps College

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Scored for soprano, electric guitar, percussion, and string quartet.

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Arguably the earliest female teacher in Christianity, the story of Thecla will be set by leading female American composer Marjorie Merryman (two-time winner of the Music Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters). The planned commission will set texts about Thecla from ‘The Acts of Paul and Thecla, from later cultic texts, and from newly commissioned poetry. This major work of vocal chamber music will invite the audience into several distinct ‘registers’ of experience—ancient, medieval, and contemporary—each firmly grounded in scholarly research.