Passionate Pilgrim is a "rock-infused song cycle" with Baroque instrumentation created by composer/performer collective Oracle Hysterical. This new release, out on VIA Records March 17, features Oracle Hysterical with Juilliard-trained period ensemble New Vintage Baroque. While texts from the album are drawn from The Passionate Pilgrim, a poem cycle once attributed to “W. Shakespeare,” WBAA Music Director John Clare thinks Keatsis appropriate to describe this amazing new album: "with voice sweetly bland." Clare spoke to Majel Connery from Oracle Hysterical about Passionate Pilgrim.
The collection has been called "a mashup of tuneful chamber-pop." Learn more about it here.
Oracle Hysterical is a collective of four composer-performers: twin brothers Doug Balliett (double bass, viola da gamba) and Brad Balliett (bassoon), Majel Connery (vocals), and Elliot Cole (guitars, vocals, harmonium). Half band, half book club, Oracle Hysterical combines eclectic musical influences with literary breadth, adapting great works of literature through the medium of song. The group has created hip-hoperas, art-rock song cycles, rap cantatas, and other genre-bending works all over America and Europe, collaborating with a variety of ensembles to cultivate a unique sound palette for each project.
