Klinkhart Hall Arts Center in Sharon Springs will present “Muldoon’s Picnic” this Saturday, September 10, at 7:30pm at the Sharon Springs Central School Auditorium. Tickets are available in advance at klinkharthall.org/product/muldoons-picnic/ or at the door.
Named after a popular New York vaudeville act and an Irish-American farce from the 1880s, “Muldoon’s Picnic” is an entertainment devised, developed, and hosted by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon.
Billed as a mixum-gatherum of poetry, prose, and music, “Muldoon’s Picnic” has featured appearances by hundreds of artists during its 10-year run at the Irish Arts Center in NYC.
In addition to the “house band” Rogue Oliphant, the Sharon Springs “Picnic” will feature musicians Richard Thompson and Zara Phillips along with poet Patricia Smith and, Mr. Muldoon.
Rogue Oliphant is a collective of musicians that specializes in playing original songs and accompanying spoken word lyrics by Paul Muldoon.
The band toured Ireland with “Muldoon’s Picnic” in 2017, 2019, and again in the summer of 2022, previously appeared in Sharon Springs with Mr. Muldoon in 2019 and 2021.
In addition to Mr. Muldoon, the September lineup will include Chris Harford, Ray Kubian, David Mansfield, Cait O’Riordan, Warren Zanes, and Alexis Thomason.
Richard Thompson is a legendary English singer, songwriter, and guitarist.
He first gained prominence in late 1960s as the lead guitarist and songwriter for the folk-rock group, Fairport Convention. He has since recorded numerous solo albums and, in 2021, the memoir Losing My Way and Finding my Voice.
Singer-songwriter Zara Phillips began her professional career working as a backing vocalist for Bob Geldof, the Live-Aid creator. She has recorded several albums of original work most recently “Meditation & KitKats,” produced by her collaborator, Richard Thompson.
Patricia Smith is the author of eight books of poetry, including Incendiary Art, winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 2017 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the 2018 NAACP Image Award, the finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize.
Paul Muldoon is an international award-winning poet, author of 15 major books of poetry, a professor of poetry, as well as an editor, critic, and translator.
He is also the founder of the Sharon Springs Poetry Festival.