Coming Together

The music of singer­-songwriter Will Oldham, aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy, has been linked to Americana, folk, roots, country, punk, and indie rock, and Will himself has been described as an “Appalachian post­punk solipsist” with a voice that is “a fragile sort­ of warble frittering around haunted melodies in the American folk or country tradition.” He joins the ‘Birds to perform a set of original songs, along with Frederic Rzewski’s iconic Coming Together, a touchstone piece of classical music’s young, underground, independently-minded set. The text for this piece is taken directly from a letter written by Attica prison inmate Sam Melville in 1971, only months before the riots which he helped organized and that led to his death, and trace a descent from self-control into madness.