Mercy and Grand

Mercy and Grand celebrates the music of Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, and at the same time it expresses something of the great American and European songwriting traditions from which they spring. Our project involves setting Tom and Kathleen, as composers, alongside other composers. Here, for example, we have pieces by Kurt Weill, some folk music, a John Tams fairground ballad, a tango and a gypsy waltz. We do not seek to be a pastiche of Tom’s own band nor do we replicate Tom’s inimitable performing style. Our singer, Jess Walker, is classically trained, female and English, and this can help to draw a different kind of attention to the words and the music, especially for those more used to Tom’s unique qualities as performer.

When Dominic Gray at Opera North got us all together for the first time we simply played through lots of material. Gradually we focused on particular themes – memory, loss, journeys, the circus… – and although there is no specific narrative in the sequence of songs, there is a sense that the music does take us on a kind of journey.