Music By Composer Jonathan Beard Featured in 5th Wall Theatre's Production Of THE GLASS MENAGERIE

Composer Jonathan Beard has written an original score that is currently part of a new production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie by the 5th Wall Theatre at The Basement - 300 E. Broad St. in Richmond, VA. The production opened on January 17 and will close on February 8.

The composer has written this about the score, which was originally commissioned by the Sierra Madre Playhouse in Los Angeles, CA, "Tennessee Williams has his narrator Tom suggest that "This play is memory. It is not realistic." It is Williams' construction of The Glass Menagerie as an intensely personal memory-play that has served as a guiding creative light for my approach to the score. In choosing instrumentation, I sought to create a musical counterpoint to the nature of memory, which is in itself augmented and imprecise. To achieve this, I created a sonic mixture of both acoustic instruments - such as cello, flute, and piano - and studio-altered electroacoustic instruments, which only exist in a recorded reality. These subtly altered electroacoustic instruments harken vaguely back to their acoustic counterparts, but also feel otherworldly in some way. I call these "memory-instruments"; one example you will hear prominently is the memory-violin under Tom's opening narration, in its haunting beauty. The slightly illusive nature of these otherworldly sounds, speaks to both the power and beyond-real nature of memory. It is my hope that the score for The Glass Menagerie helps to invite viewers to share a deep connection with Tom, Amanda, and Laura, in all their depth and emotional complexity."

Production cues can be heard at https://soundcloud.com/jbeardmusic/sets/the-glass-menagerie-original-score.

More information about the current 5th Wall Theatre production at http://www.5thwalltheatre.org/tickets/. Hear a Virginia Public Media interview with the production's Director Morrie Piersol at https://vpm.org/listen/articles/10314/5th-wall-theatre-presents-the-glass-menagerie?fbclid=IwAR2ApjB7I_WeZ4jYDzieWm-0-8aGQF6PBsAcb2v6PgpZu55sL92k0RfDWVc.

Jonathan Beard creates music for media and the concert stage. As a composer, recent diverse projects include his electroacoustic opera Cesare, Child of Night, the film scores to What Still Remains, Heavenquest, and Frank vs. God; and De tu puño y letra, an electronic video-sound collaboration with iconic artist Suzanne Lacy. He has served on the composing teams for video games such as Star Wars Battlefront I and II, and guest-composed for ABC's Once Upon A Time. For the stage, Jonathan co-composed the oratorio The Passion of Anne Frank for the Los Angeles Master Chorale as part of their Voices Within residency, and his original theatre-score for Driving Miss Daisy received an NAACP Theatre Award nomination. Visit him at https://www.jonathanbeard.com/.

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