Sufjan Stevens is an artist commonly enjoyed by melancholy hipsters. With this in mind, I headed to the Douglas Hyde Gallery on Friday for the opening night of Glasshouse, a Dublin-based ensemble, performing the music of Sufjan Stevens. The group have performed the music of the Michigan artist multiple times before, including a sell-out night at The Sugar Club last February where they played through Sufjan’s iconic 2005 album Sufjan Stevens Invites You to: Come On Feel the Illinoise (or Illinois for short). Once again, Glasshouse manages to bring to life the colourful and expressive music of Sufjan Stevens, something that is not an easy feat.

The Douglas Hyde Gallery as a venue provided an intimate atmosphere for the performance, with an approximate capacity of 100 people. The performance area was covered in fairy lights and lit with colourful floor lights, adding to the beauty of the music that was about to come. Similar to their performance at The Sugar Club, Glasshouse performed Sufjan’s Illinois album from beginning to end, opening with the beautiful “Concerning the UFO Sighting near Highland, Illinois”. Singer Michael Broderick soon showed his ability to embody the tone of Sufjan’s music. His charismatic, yet understated stage presence encapsulates the mood of the music and lyrics he’s singing. As the ensemble made their way through the album, they managed to capture the tumultuous changes in mood this album goes through as it tells the story of The Prairie State. They successfully reproduce the celebratory and festive feel of “Come On! Feel the Illinoise!” and “Chicago” while also creating the melancholy atmosphere of “John Wayne Gacy Jr.” and “Casimir Pulaski Day”. The highlight of the evening for me and undoubtedly others was their rendition of “The Predatory Wasp of Palisades Is Out to Get Us!”, with its expressive strings and emotive choir parts.

The second part of the evening was dedicated to songs off other Sufjan Stevens’ albums. The most impressive part of this was their renditions of songs from the album The Age Of Adz, where Sufjan experiments with electronics and orchestration. These songs, like “Age of Adz” and “Vesuvius” were arranged well for the instruments available in the ensemble. During this part, we also saw the full vocal talents of other members of the ensemble as they took over the lead vocals for selected songs. This included members of the choir: Katie Richardson-McCrea, Rachael Lavelle, and pianist Kevin Corcoran. Other highlights of this part of the night included renditions of “Fourth of July” and “Should Have Known Better”, both from Sufjan’s 2015 album Carrie and Lowell. To end the show, they provided an encore, reprising the Illinois song “Chicago”, a providing an uplifting finale to the night as the audience joined in singing.

While the concert was beautiful and perfectly captured the essence of Sufjan’s works, there was, of course, some faults. Several mistakes were made in the performance, including having to restart songs and members of the ensemble missing their cues. Some songs, or parts of songs felt under-rehearsed, in particular some of the choir parts. That being said, I don’t think these elements took away from the performance, as the ensemble powered through these missteps and didn’t let it affect the rest of the music.

Overall, this was an enjoyable concert, performed by many talented people. Sufjan is known for using a wide range of instruments in his songs, yet the ensemble were able to bring these songs to life with the ten different instruments they had. I’d like to congratulate Aran O’Grady for his wonderful job of arranging the songs performed. Glasshouse’s next concert is taking on December 9th where they’ll perform Jóhann Jóhannsson’s 2016 album Orphée. It’s wonderful to see a young ensemble taking on contemporary masterpieces such as those of Sufjan Stevens and Jóhann Jóhannsson. I hope to see more of them in the future.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfl0d-T7ZtU