The Seven Doors of Danny is a song cycle composed by Sussex-born composer Ricky Horscraft (born 1973) in collaboration with Brighton-based poet John McCullough [1] (born 1978). Its storyline is based on Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man (from As You Like It) and is composed for male soloists with male chorus and chamber orchestra. It was premiered on 2 April 2016 [2] in Hove by members respectively of Actually Gay Men's Chorus (AGMC) and University of Sussex Symphony Orchestra (USSO).
The work comprises seven songs in diverse styles, telling the story of the title character in chronological sequence and each song is to be sung ideally by a performer approximate in age to the character at that point in the story. Each song is introduced by a short narrative verse delivered by the narrator who may also be a performer in the chorus.
The seven songs are:
Go!
Wire
Fingerprints
Jobbing for the Devil
The Locksmith
Lift
Go! (Part Two)
The title character's name was chosen due to the urban setting of the work.
During 2017 the creators worked with a mutual friend to expand the work further, fleshing out the storyline with dialogue, drama and additional music. This new musical theatre edition of the work was premiered at the 2018 B Right On Festival in Brighton and Hove, in conjunction with the Brighton and Hove Lesbian and Gay Community Safety Forum, again with members of AGMC and USSO in the chorus and orchestra, plus a number of guests.
In the expanded version, the villain of the piece, drag queen racketeer "Tequila Heels", appearing opposite Danny no. 4, has been given her own song, "Suck It Up".
The premiere, like its predecessor was very well received. [3]
Sussex, from the Old English Sūþsēaxe, is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English Channel, and divided for many purposes into the ceremonial counties of West Sussex and East Sussex.
Brighton is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove. Located on the southern coast of England, in the county of East Sussex, it is 47 miles (76 km) south of London.
Kurt Julian Weill was a German composer, active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work, The Threepenny Opera, which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose, Gebrauchsmusik. He also wrote several works for the concert hall and a number of works on Jewish themes. He became a United States citizen on August 27, 1943.
Jake Heggie is an American composer of opera, vocal, orchestral, and chamber music. He is best known for his operas and art songs as well as for his collaborations with internationally renowned performers and writers.
London Gay Men's Chorus is a gay choir that was founded in 1991 by a group of nine gay men. The group now has around 190 singing members and over 230 members in total.
Howard David Blake is an English composer, conductor, and pianist whose career has spanned more than 50 years and produced more than 650 works. Blake's most successful work is his soundtrack for Channel 4’s 1982 film The Snowman, which includes the song "Walking in the Air". He is increasingly recognised for his classical works including concertos, oratorios, ballets, operas and many instrumental pieces.
"Sussex by the Sea" is a patriotic song written in 1907 by William Ward-Higgs, often considered to be the unofficial county anthem of Sussex. It became well known throughout Sussex and is regularly sung at celebrations throughout the county. It can be heard during many sporting events in the county, during the Sussex bonfire celebrations and it is played by marching bands and Morris dancers across Sussex. It is the adopted song of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club, Sussex Division Royal Naval Reserve, Sussex Association of Naval Officers and Sussex County Cricket Club.
The Grande Messe des morts, Op. 5, by Hector Berlioz was composed in 1837. The Grande Messe des Morts is one of Berlioz's best-known works, with a tremendous orchestration of woodwind and brass instruments, including four antiphonal offstage brass ensembles. The work derives its text from the traditional Latin Requiem Mass. It has a duration of approximately ninety minutes, although there are faster recordings of under seventy-five minutes.
Georges Bizet composed L'Arlésienne as incidental music to Alphonse Daudet's play of the same name, usually translated as The Girl from Arles. It was first performed on 1 October 1872 at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris. Bizet's music consists of 27 numbers for voice, chorus, and small orchestra, ranging from short solos to longer entr'actes. Bizet himself played the harmonium backstage at the premiere performance.
Sarah Frances Beamish is a British composer and violist. Her works include chamber, vocal, choral and orchestral music. She has also worked in the field of music, theatre, film and television, as well as composing for children and for her local community.
The LGBT community of Brighton and Hove is one of the largest in the United Kingdom. Brighton, a seaside resort on the south coast of England, is generally agreed to be the unofficial "gay capital" of the UK, with records pertaining to LGBT history dating back to the early 19th century.
Public transport in Brighton and Hove, a city on the south coast of England, dates back to 1840. Brighton and Hove has a major railway station, an extensive bus service, many taxis, coach services, and it has previously had trolley buses, ferries, trams, auto rickshaws and hydrofoils.
John Roman Baker is a British poet, playwright and novelist.
The Atlanta Gay Men's Chorus (AGMC) is a nonprofit performing arts organization based in Atlanta, Georgia (USA). The AGMC, along with the Atlanta Women's Chorus, are managed under their parent organization, Voices of Note.
Family Opera Initiative (FOI) is an American opera company based in New York City that commissions, develops, and premieres original works for cross-generational audiences. It was founded in 1995 by Grethe Barrett Holby, originally as part of American Opera Projects. Its mission was and remains to create new repertory for family audiences, to bring the experience of opera to a diverse audience, and to engage the community in the process and performance of their works.
Peter Copley is a British composer, cellist and pianist.
Roundhill Crescent is a late-19th-century housing development in Round Hill, an inner suburb of the English coastal city of Brighton and Hove. Partly developed in the 1860s with large terraced houses on a steeply sloping open hillside, the crescent—which "curves and changes height dramatically along its length"—was finished two decades later and now forms the centrepiece of the Round Hill conservation area. Smaller houses completed the composition in the 1880s, and England's first hospital for the treatment of mental illness was founded in the crescent in 1905. The five original sets of houses from the 1860s have been listed at Grade II by English Heritage for their architectural and historical importance, and the crescent occupies a prominent place on Brighton's skyline.
Elena Langer is a Russian-born British composer of opera and other contemporary classical music. Her work has been performed at the Royal Opera House, Zurich Opera, Carnegie Hall, Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academic Music Theatre, Shakespeare's Globe, Wigmore Hall, Opera national du Rhin, Strasbourg, and Milton Court, Barbican Centre. She studied piano and composition at the Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow and composition at the Moscow Conservatoire; in 1999 she moved to London and studied composition at the Royal College of Music (1999–2000) with Julian Anderson and the Royal Academy of Music (2001–03) with Simon Bainbridge.
The Marlborough Pub and Theatre is a historic venue, situated at 4 Princes Street, Brighton. It has been associated, since the 1970s, with the LGBT community. Until 2020, the Marlborough's small theatre presented drama, cabaret and music throughout the year, including during the Brighton Fringe Festival, LGBT History Month and Brighton Pride Arts Festival. It is colloquially referred to as 'The Marlborough' or 'The Marly'.
An American Soldier is an opera in two acts composed by Huang Ruo to a libretto by playwright David Henry Hwang. It initially premiered in a one-act version in 2014 and was subsequently expanded to two acts. The two-act version had its world premiere on 3 June 2018 during the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis festival. The opera is based on a true story, the suicide of Danny Chen, a Chinese-American U.S. Army soldier who had been subjected to racial harassment and beatings by his fellow soldiers. Chen died in 2011 at his U.S. Army post in Afghanistan from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.