Maggie Hasspacher, double bass and voice

Pomes Penyeach, by Paul Brantley, text by James Joyce

I. Alone

The moon’s grey golden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.
The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name, her name,
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.

II. Nightpiece

Gaunt in gloom,
The pale stars their torches,
Enshrouded, wave.
Ghostfires from heaven’s far verges faint illume,
Arches on soaring arches,
Night’s sindark nave.

Seraphim,
The lost hosts awaken
To service till
In moonless gloom each lapses muted, dim,
Raised when she has and shaken
Her thurible.

And long and loud,
To night’s nave upsoaring,
A starknell tolls
As the bleak incense surges, cloud on cloud,
Voidward from the adoring
Waste of souls.

III. Bahnhofstrasse

The eyes that mock me sign the way
Whereto I pass at eve of day.

Grey way whose violet signals are
The trysting and the twining star.

Ah star of evil! star of pain!
Highhearted youth comes not again

Nor old heart’s wisdom yet to know
The signs that mock me as I go.

Bassist, vocalist and songwriter, producer, animator.

Maggie trained at the highest levels as a classical bassist receiving her doctorate at the University of Michigan.

A passionate performer of new music, Maggie has been instrumental in expanding the repertoire for bass and voice. Composers with whom she has collaborated include Timo Andres, Sarah Gibson, Amy K. Bormet, Paul Brantley, and many others.

As a founding member of the Grammy-nominated WildUp new music collective, she has toured the world and performed solo works at the Los Angeles Philharmonic as part of the Fluxus Festival. She has also been a long time performer at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland as part of their Academy and Alumni Ensembles.

As a singer songwriter, Maggie has performed throughout North America, and regularly produces content based on her own songs and arrangements of folk standards.