Phil Kline's GHOST STORY to Premiere at Gardner Museum

On Sunday, February 23 at 1:30 p.m., the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum will present the world premiere of ghost story, a song cycle it commissioned from composer/lyricist Phil Kline, inspired by the life and times of Isabella Stewart Gardner. The concert features the Gardner debuts of the rising young soprano Nicoletta Berry and the fearless piano/percussion quartet Yarn/Wire (pianists Laura Barger and Julia Den Boer; percussionists Sae Hashimoto and Russell Greenberg).

Isabella Stewart Gardner was a remarkable hero—a proto-feminist, a free thinker, and a free spirit determined to behave as she wished, who smoked and wore her Red Sox regalia to the symphony. But she liked to remain a mystery, asking friends to burn her letters, and burning her own. 

Kline says, "Anyone who enters Isabella's house encounters the ghost of the woman who built it. It is the spirit which guides you through the seeming free-form landscape of the museum. These songs attempt to delve into the world of a maverick who did what she wanted, and to reveal secrets that she did her best to conceal—a tenderness underlying her determination."

Other than a poem by Wilfred Owen, all of the texts were adapted by Phil Kline and come from a variety of sources. They range from Isabella's letters to Bernard Berenson, a catalog description of one of the paintings stolen in the notorious 1990 theft, Isabella's funeral instructions, and a gossip sheet's account of her "sensational" behavior at a Boston Symphony Orchestra concert.

Kline, while well known for his electronic compositions (most famously his ambient procession Unsilent Night, an outdoor holiday tradition presented by dozens of cities each year), has long made an impression with his mastery of songwriting and found text (Zippo Songs, Rumsfeld Songs, Florida Man).