Steven Mackey’s ‘MEMOIR,’ an ‘opera without singing,’ will be performed at McCarter Theatre Center

STEVEN MACKEY

An unpublished memoir by composer and guitarist Steven Mackey’s mother Elaine inspired his “MEMOIR,” which The McCarter Theatre Center, in partnership with Princeton University’s music department, will present at McCarter’s Berlind Theatre, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. and April 19 at 2 p.m.

The work will be performed by The Aeolus Quartet (violinists Isabelle Ai Durrenberger and Rachel Shapiro, violist Caitlyn Lynch and cellist Jia Kim), the arx percussion duo (Garrett Arney and Sijia Huang) and narrator Natalie Christa Rakes, who will read passages taken directly from his mother’s writings.

Mackey — the Princeton professor who won a Grammy in 2012, in the Small Classical Ensemble category, for Lonely Motel: Music from Slide — says, in a press release, that “MEMOIR” is “hard to describe — maybe opera without singing or story-telling wrapped in music.”

Mackey, 70, also says in the press release that he could not have written “MEMOIR” earlier in his career. “There is a level of vulnerability I would not have tolerated as a 50-year-old midcareer composer,” he said. “By the time I became eligible for Medicare, and started working on MEMOIR, holding back seemed stingy, being ‘cool’ had lost its appeal. In short … I have a story to tell and not forever to tell it. What am I waiting for?”

Mackey, who will retire from teaching at the end of the current semester, will talk about the creation of “MEMOIR” at the start of each McCarter concert.

“MEMOIR” premiered in 2022 and was released in album form — featuring Rakes, the arx duo and The Dover Quartet — in 2024.

For information about the McCarter concerts, visit mccarter.org.

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