One of the most buzzworthy events of our 2025 season is our presentation of the Albuquerque-based Chatter Ensemble, which, on August 13, makes its Festival debut giving the first-ever Festival performance of Eight Songs for a Mad King, an avant-garde monodrama written in 1969 by the English composer Peter Maxwell Davies (1934–2016). Chatter’s roughly 30-minute performance features baritone Michael Hix in the highly virtuosic titular role of George III, who was the king of Great Britain and Ireland from 1760 until his death in 1820 (at the age of 81) and who’s perhaps best known (in the US at least) as having been on the losing side of the American Revolutionary War. George III is also known as having been “mad” (see, for example, the 1994 Oscar-winning film The Madness of King George and the 1991 play it’s based on), although the exact cause and nature of George’s “madness” remains the subject of debate.
Eight Songs for a Mad King is a haunting and compassion-evoking work that features text by the Australian-born writer Randolph Stow (1935–2010) that’s based, in part, on some of George III’s own words, and its score includes what Davies described as “aspects of the styles of many composers, from Handel to Birtwistle.” For Chatter’s August 13 performance, which is directed by Tara Khozein, Michael Hix is joined by violinist David Felberg, cellist James Holland, flutist Jesse Tatum, clarinetist James Shields, keyboardist Luke Gullickson, and percussionist Jeffrey Cornelius.
Chatter was formed in 2002 by David Felberg—a prolific performer and conductor who’s familiar to many Festival goers as the longtime concertmaster of the Santa Fe Symphony—and the late cellist Eric Walters. The duo sought to curate and perform concerts that featured contemporary chamber music works as well as uncommon instruments, and today Chatter, with Felberg as artistic director, is a collective of sorts, presenting 120 musicians every year in performances that spotlight a wide range of contemporary and traditional chamber music works as well as poetry and spoken word. Chatter’s performances are offered year-round through various series, including Chatter North, held on Saturday mornings at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe; Chatter Sundays, held on Sunday mornings in Albuquerque; and nighttime, evening, and summertime series.
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