Indiana’s Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra will perform Sarah Kirkland Snider’s 2010 song cycle Penelope in a free performance on May 20 at City View at Sterling Square, an event space in Evansville. The one-hour concert will feature the orchestra and soprano Alejandra Martinez in the work, which focuses on the trauma of war and was inspired by Homer’s Odyssey, with lyrics by Ellen McLaughlin. In Snider and McLaughlin’s retelling of the story, a woman’s husband appears at her door after an absence of 20 years, suffering from brain damage. A veteran of a modern war, he doesn’t know who he is; she reads him The Odyssey as a way to unlock his memory. On May 19, Music Director Roger Kalia will host a Zoom pre-concert discussion about music and mental health with Dr. Louis Cady, diplomate American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology and founder and CEO of Cady Wellness Institute; and Dr. Danielle Henderson, clinical psychologist at IU Health and assistant professor of Clinical Psychiatry IU School of Medicine. Online viewers of the pre-concert discussion can ask questions and add comments.
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