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I Could Read the Sky

Cathy Jordan & Timothy O’Grady. Photographs by Steve Pyke

 

SAT 26 OCT – 18.00h

Teatre Prado, C/Francesc Gumà, 6

€15

 

This live show in English, with some Catalan translations, brings together words, music and photographs to tell the story.

 

• Reader/Author: Timothy O'Grady.

• Music: Cathy Jordan, Cormac de Barra, Tim Doyle and Felip Carbonell.

• Photographs: Steve Pyke.

 

I Could Read the Sky has been published this year in Catalan by L'Agulla Daurada under the title Sabia legir el cel, in a translation by Neil Sabatés Crowley. It is also available in Spanish from Pepitas de Calabaza under the title Sabia leer el cielo.

 

In the now-classic novel 'I Could Read the Sky', an old Irishman lies alone in bed in London and remembers a migrant's life. Haunted by the faces and the land he left behind, he calls forth the bars and boxing booths of England, the potato fields and building sites, the music he played and the woman he loved. An Irish life with echoes of the lives of unregarded migrants everywhere.  

 

Reviews:

"I Could Read the Sky' is more than a concert, more than a show, and more than an experience, it is the truth, and all human life is here." (Irish Music Magazine)

 

"The work unrolls with the dignified steadiness of a gorgeous slow air...with stubborn pride in occasional grace notes....People have been trying to read the sky a long time. Rare masterpieces like this help us do it." (Joseph O'Connor, Irish Times)

 

"[I Could Read the Sky] is an almost indescribably brilliant account of what it is to be an Irish emigre - often lost to their families and references of home. It's so lyrical, so full of feeling, and although many of the stories are heart-breaking, they're told without an iota of self-pity. As for the scenes describing music, they're quite simply the best I have read anywhere, ever." (Sue Lyons, The Examiner)

 

"O'Grady does not just respond to Pyke's stark, beautiful photographs: he gives voice to thousands." (Louise Kennedy)

 

"...an amazing concert...and the audience responded with standing ovations and tears of sadness and pride." (The Examiner)

 

"Tonight was quite something. Billed as a night of words and music, it instead blossomed into a communion of performers and punters." (Hot Press)

 

Copies of I Could Read the Sky and Sabia llegir el cel will be on sale over the Festival Weekend!

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Event Duration 1 hr - 1 hr 15mins.