Rapture in Three Keys

Our first fundraiser for 2012 Bloomsday is Rapture in Three Keys, a program that combines Deborah Kayser and Nick Tsavios's original music, and in particular their setting for an ancient Irish poem, 'I Am Eve' with Paul Goddard's reading of two exquisite poetical Oscar Wilde stories. Patrons have met Nick and Deb's music in recorded form, as the musical introduction to this year's Bloomsday theatrical event, 'An Irishman and a Jew went into a Pub'. Paul was a much-loved Oscar for Bloomsday 2009 at the State Library.

If you go to the Events page about this, you will get the details about times and venues. It is necessary to book for the event on Sunday, for catering purposes, and desirable to book for Friday night as well.  And now you can book online as well. How easy is that?

In preparing for this show, we've come to realise how special the Oscar stories are, and how superbly they can be enhanced with music.  They belong to the Golden Age of Children's Literature, the mid- to late c19, when childhood became a golden estate in its own right, rather than a pre-adult stage, and when superb writers of the calibre of Lewis Carrol, Charles Kingsley, J.M. Barry spared children moralism and entranced them with fantasy. Oscar Wilde is not as well known as some of his contemporaries as a children's writer, and we think you'll be fascinated by his skill in walking the line between knowing adults and innocent understandings of the same material. Our artists promise a treat, or indeed several.

This is a very special event and we hope you enjoy it in the comfort of the Celtic Club or in the garden amphitheatre. Sunday's weather looks a little unstable at present, so we may need to confine the number of bookings we take in case of having to move under cover. We'll provide the mozzie repellant (not that we've noticed any yet), but suggest you rug up in case of a dramatic turn for the cooler. At present, it promises to be a very warm day, but rain is also possible.