I love a concept album especially with a literary twist so All About Jane from Monica Livorsi is right up my alley. All About Jane is all about Jane Austen. It is releasing on April 26, with on album release shows on May 3 & 4 at The Hive Collaborative in St Paul.
You are releasing an album about Jane Austen. What drew you to Jane?
I’ve always been a Jane Austen fan, I admire how clever and sassy she is in her writing, and how she was able to make so many societal comments through her characters, they are so well written. However, this project happened unexpectedly. I was in a place of writer’s block, and wanted to try my hand at writing a love song, but was struggling to find inspiration. So I decided to turn to what I consider the most romantic of Austen’s novels, Persuasion, and a song was born from the perspective of the main character, Anne Elliot! I was surprised at how quick I was able to find inspiration and craft a song, so I decided to try writing from another character’s perspective – for contrast, I next chose Mary Crawford from Mansfield Crawford and BOOM the same thing happened. I decided to keep going and once I hit 6 songs I made the choice to commit to a Jane Austen concept-album. There are 12 songs on the album, all featuring a different female character or characters from each of her 6 novels.
I love the idea of a night out that spurs me to do a little homework. So how would you recommend a patron prepare for the show? Read (or re-read) any particular novel? Scan Cliff Notes for them all? Watch (re-watch) a novel-made-movie?
- My goal is to make performances of these songs inclusive to all, including those who have no prior knowledge of Jane Austen, I’ll make sure to give a quick synopsis of the character so the context of the character and song is understood – however, I am always happy to share my recommendations!! There are specific references within some of the songs that my fellow Austen-lovers will catch. But, if you’re not looking to read 6 Jane Austen novels prior to the album release, but you’re curious about the characters and storylines, here are my movie/TV recommendations:
–Pride & Prejudice – my favorite is the 2005 Keira Knightly and Matthew Macfadyen movie adaptation - –Emma – BBC miniseries from 2009 is FANTASTIC!! Only 4 episodes, each 1 hour.
- –Sense and Sensibility – 1995 movie adaptation featuring Emma Thompson, Kate Winselt, and Hugh Grant!
- –Persuasion (2007) and Northanger Abbey (2007) – okay, these are not the highest quality of movie, but they will give you gist of the stories and characters…
- –Mansfield Park….just skip this one. I’ll help ya out at the show 😉
Will you be doing any videos for All About Jane? If so, can you give us a hint about what you’re thinking?
I am! I have 2 music videos that will be releasing soon after the album releases on April 26, that I filmed in Los Angeles back in January. The first one will be for Lizzy Bennet, who’s song centers around her reaction for the FIRST marriage proposal from Mr. Darcy…and let’s just say that does NOT go well…
The second video will be for a lesser known character, Isabella Thorpe from Northanger Abbey. Isabella is engaged to main character Catherine Morland’s older brother. However, the engagement is broken off due to Isabella accepting attention from another man…I took some artistic liberties on what Isabella might’ve actually done to cause the engagement to end, and am happy to provide a sultry song on this album. The music video will feature dancer (and Director/Producer) Rose Knight.
Please tell us about the upcoming release show.
Happening May 3 & 4 @ 7pm at The Hive Collaborative in St Paul, these shows will showcase all 12 songs from the album as well as 2 never-before-heard original songs! (One of them might even be a Jane song…) I’m also excited to present openers Kyle Baker and Jenessa Iverson who will be performing excerpts from a concept series they are writing that centers around the Seven Deadly Sins. If you came and saw All About Jane: The Eras of Austen back in December at The Hive, this show will be more concert-style. I am thrilled at the incredible musicians performing alongside me for this show: Kyle Baker, Jenessa Iverson, Jordan Hedlund, Matt McIntyre, and Kale Winship.
Seems like you are probably steeped in the literature of Jane Austin. She captures the best and worst of being female in the early 1800s. I think of precarious position of the daughters in Pride and Prejudice, who cannot inherit property and therefore must focus on finding a husband. Or the hubris of the well-off Emma in her matchmaking. In each example, the futures of the female characters are defined more by their relationships than their merit. What do you think Jane would say about being female today?
Oooo good question – part of my goal with this album was to write these women in a way to relate them to a modern audience, and while I definitely needed to acknowledge most of the relationships as that’s what the stories center around, I tried to pull the women apart from them as best I could. Lizzy Bennet’s song, while contextually about her reaction to Mr Darcy, is centered around her anger and feistiness that are key character traits that make so many of us love her. I like to think of Emma Woodhouse’s character as similar to a Disney villain (love them on screen, maybe not so much in real life?), which is reflected in her ego-centric song with lyrics “stand back, watch E!” I gave Charlotte Lucas a vengeance song because her storyline, while very poignant and making a BIG societal comment in Pride and Prejudice through her relationship situation, is one of the most infuriating because marriage to the cringiest man ever written was her only way to have “independence”. I’d be curious today what pieces of the female experience Jane would choose to comment on if she were writing today, but I do believe that the traits of the women she wrote about would still show up, with or without a relationship-center storyline. I have so much admiration for her strong, timeless character writing!
Mostly Minnesota 