Jeff Beal - Jeff Beal: The Paper Lined Shack (2022) Hi-Res

For American composer Jeff Beal, finding a strong female voice to set to music for the fierce soprano Hilá Plitmann ultimately led to The Paper Lined Shack, a song cycle for soprano and orchestra using texts from his great-grandmother’s memoirs, excerpted and arranged by Joan Beal.

These reflections of her life at the turn of the 20th century in Idaho, recently widowed and raising her six children in a single-room shack, spoke to Beal in a very personal way, and he began composing the piece for Plitmann in a commission by the St. Louis Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin. This June, a recording of The Paper Lined Shack will be released on Supertrain Records on an album also featuring Things Unseen performed by the New Hollywood String Quartet.

In the spirit of this snapshot in time, a series of photos emblematic of the author and her memoir will be projected behind the performers, aptly, at Fotografiska: New York City’s premiere destination dedicated to photography.