Working: Why Opera Composer Jake Heggie Writes Music by Hand

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Music, Tv & Film, Arts

4.2 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2021

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, host June Thomas talks to composer Jake Heggie, who the Wall Street Journal described as “arguably the world’s most popular 21st-century opera and art song composer.” In the interview, Jake talks about how he fell in love with opera and why he composes all his work on manuscript paper by hand. He also discusses his recent work, Songs for Murdered Sisters, which he created with the help of writer Margaret Atwood and singer Joshua Hopkins. After the interview, June and co-host Rumaan Alam talk about Joshua’s refined artistic instincts. Then they help a listener who wants to start publishing fiction again after a long break. Send your questions about creativity and any other feedback to working@slate.com or give us a call at (304) 933-9675. Podcast production by Cameron Drews. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Big Mood, Little Mood—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on Working. Sign up now at slate.com/workingplus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Strings And Things
0:02.2	Strings And Things
0:06.1	Strings And Things
0:08.4	Strings And Things
0:11.2	Strings As We Go
0:12.3	Strings & Things
0:13.7	Strings Absolutely
0:16.2	Strings
0:20.0	There's a whole range of Strings and Things, called Strings and Things, including cheese,
0:24.6	strings, yollies and cheese shapes, find them all in the cheese and yっ,eat,veeat,avoidal
0:28.1	Strings & Things
0:29.1	and things. The best thing I got on D-POP. That's a good question. This really nice 80s
0:34.3	Adidas jumper. The quarter rates with chin wearing. This pink mini skirt. This Jessica
0:39.0	Torheri. Probably my unif choke boots. This pair of jeans I wear them all the time. The main one
0:43.5	I'm quite into the moment is extreme layering. Ranch. White's okay. Relaxed grandpa.
0:49.1	Part-time punk, part-time polypocket. I think co-cat is the word. Baggy relaxed and a bit out there.
0:54.5	I love every single character. I have to be every character. I've never been a Catholic
1:10.7	nun who's a spiritual advisor to a death row in me and yet I think I wrote one pretty successfully
1:17.4	because it's a human story. It's a human experience. It's a human being and my job as a theater
1:22.8	composer is to empathize and listen and respond. Welcome back to working. I'm your host,
1:32.9	Ramon Along. And I'm your other host, June Thomas. We heard another voice just now. June.
1:39.6	Who is your guest this week? That was Jake Hegey, who the Wall Street Journal described as quote,
	...

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