The US composer and pianist Rachel Grimes has revealed details of new folk opera and film ‘The Way Forth’ which is described as an experiential, non-linear journey following generations of Kentucky women. Through extensive lush orchestration, narration, and imagery filmed in rural Kentucky, The Way Forth honours the legacy of the silenced, eternal grace, and the redemption of time. It is released via Temporary Residence on November 1st.
Special guest collaborators include actor Stephen Duff Webber, acclaimed US harpist and Jack White collaborator Timbre Cierpke, Joan Shelley, and Alan Lomax archivist and musician Nathan Salsburg. The film was created in collaboration with award-winning US director Catharine Axley which accompanies the musical work for use in live performance and a feature-length version will be released in 2020.
Watch the accompanying video for single Got Ahold of Me.
“A current-day Woman wonders why these voices and objects from the past have grabbed her.”
The details of the project reveal an incredible depth – “reflections on a place battered by greed, civil war, bigotry and the exploitation of natural resources.”
Inspired by a treasure-trove of family documents, photos, and letters spanning several generations, Grimes began in 2016 to research some of the more vexing questions that came to the surface about these people, places, and events. Fueled by intuition, travel to visit family, photographing, and filming present-day rural Kentucky life, the research led to many more questions: What is missing? What is not being said here? What did she really think and feel? Primary historical accounts routinely glossed over people without titles or voting rights and dehumanized most others by referring to them as objects of desire, savages, or slaves. Further examination formed a framework for trying to reconcile her state’s history and how it relates to the westward expansion and settlement of the United States and ultimately how an era of domination, denial, and pain is reflected in the complex culture of today.
The songs that make up The Way Forth weave back in time through a postcard, a personal account of a long life on a farm, traces of folk tunes, names, places, and rivers, all woven into an emotional fabric of yearning, nostalgia, grief, and the rich intimacies of everyday life. Initially, solo voices are heard above vivid orchestrations, expanding with the choral voices of the community through fragments of traditional church music and popular tunes. The scope widens to include a modern male narrator’s reflections on a place battered by greed, civil war, bigotry, and the exploitation of natural resources. Through music, voice, and film, The Way Forth honours the emotional legacy of the silenced, the holistic, the beauty in quotidian life, and explores the eternal grace and redemption of time, as symbolised by the great Dix and Kentucky Rivers.
Watch the trailer below:
Pre-order via Temporary Residence
Read more about the project here http://www.rachelgrimespiano.com/the-way-forth/
Photo Credit: Jessie Kriech-Higdon