Feldman & Beckett: Words & Music – Claire Booth & Ensemble 360

A rare collaboration of words, silence and sound

This extraordinary evening explores the profound artistic collaboration between two 20th-century visionaries: composer Morton Feldman and writer Samuel Beckett.

Performed by soprano Claire Booth with Ensemble 360, Feldman & Beckett: Words & Music brings together music, spoken text and theatrical form in a hypnotic exploration of repetition, memory and meaning.

Programme

• Feldman – Why Patterns? (30’)

• Beckett – Rockabye (20’)

• Feldman – Two Intermissions (1950), Nos. 1 & 2 (4’)

• Feldman / Beckett – Samuel Beckett, Words and Music (42’)

At the heart of the programme is Samuel Beckett, Words and Music, originally written as a radio play. The work unfolds as a cryptic trialogue between the ailing master Croak and his two servants: Words, spoken by an actor, and Music, expressed through Feldman’s spare, quietly obsessive chamber score. The result is an arresting fusion of sound and speech, tension and stillness.

Directed performance

This concert performance is directed by Vicky Featherstone, former Artistic Director of the Royal Court Theatre and founding Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Scotland, bringing theatrical clarity and sensitivity to this landmark collaboration.

Why attend

• A rare live performance of a major Feldman–Beckett collaboration

• A striking blend of chamber music, theatre and spoken word

• One of the most intellectually and emotionally compelling events of the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival

• Ideal for lovers of contemporary music, theatre, modernism and experimental performance

Part of the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival

This concert forms part of the Sheffield Chamber Music Festival, presented by Music in the Round, celebrating bold artistic ideas and cross-disciplinary performance.

🎟 Tickets & full details:
https://www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/events/feldman-beckett