Donnacha Dennehy

The ensemble Alarm Will Sound brings the concert version of Princeton University Professor Donnacha Dennehy’s modern cantata, ​The Hunger, to Princeton Sound Kitchen on September 17, 8 p.m., in Richardson Auditorium.

Rooted in the emotional, political, and socioeconomic devastation of Ireland’s Great Famine (1845-52), the work features soprano Katherine Manley and Princeton University Global Scholar ​Iarla Ó Lionáird. The Irish folk music narrative is interwoven with personal, historical accounts, where the libretto principally draws from firsthand accounts by Asenath Nicholson, an American humanitarian so moved by the waves of immigrants arriving in New York that she traveled to Ireland to report from the cabins of starving families.

The cantata will be paired with performances of compositions by Princeton graduate students Pascal Le Boeuf, Jenny Beck, Alyssa Weinberg, Tom Morrison, Connor Way, and Bora Yoon. The staged version of The Hunger was commissioned by Alarm Will Sound and premiered at BAM’s Next Wave Festival in 2016. The project received financial assistance from New Music USA, The MAP Fund, and the Arts Council of Ireland.

Free tickets are required for this concert, available at music.princeton.edu and at (609) 258-9220.