Venues
Events
VideoMusic
Antony and the Johnsons
Frontman Antony Hegarty brings his artistic integrity, and man-child sensibility, to Town Hall
Antony Hegarty
| | More
If there is one thing Antony Hegarty, singer for Antony and the Johnsons, is known for, it’s his insightful performances. He blends a heaping spoonful of the emotional with dashes of subtlety that result in something between a public reading of a boyhood diary and a one-man exhibition of bleeding-heart artistry.
Named after a New York transvestite prostitute, Hegarty’s band formed in 2000 and won the U.K.’s Mercury Music Prize after releasing 2005’s critically acclaimed I Am a Bird Now. Hegarty’s vocals warble with an almost falsetto tone much of the time, adding a note of vulnerability to each track. Many of the band’s songs are about grey areas between sex and gender, redefining sexual norms and transgendered life. One of their well-known songs, “For Today I Am a Boy,” tells the story of a young man who longs to grow up to be a woman.
Over the past nine years, Hegarty collaborated with artists like Bjork, Devendra Banhart and Yoko Ono, all of whom are also huge fans of his music. This year also saw the debut of Hegarty’s artwork in London. The show, entitled The Creek, is a series of dream landscapes applied to reclaimed items worn by weather, or just everyday life. Hegarty also performed in the movies Animal Factory, as a prison inmate, and Wild Side. He played a cover of “If It Be Your Will” in the 2006 documentary Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man.
Other members of the band are as multifaceted as Hegarty. Julia Kent, who plays the cello, formerly performed with the band Rasputina and artists like Rufus Wainwright. Doug Wieselman, on horns, performs with everyone from choreographer Jerome Robbins to theatrical acts like the Flying Karamazov Brothers. Other members of the group boast resumes that include stints at Juilliard, Carnegie Hall and CBGBs.
2009’s much anticipated The Crying Light is the band’s first release since Bird. Shows previewing the album featured a full orchestra arranged by composer Nico Muhly. A reviewer for the U.K. newspaper The Observer describes a 2008 November performance where Hegarty performed the first three songs in the dark onstage. Throughout the show, the light slowly rose until the audience could make out a profile, then the band, and finally the entire landscape of the stage and a full view of Hegarty’s delicate movements to his touching ballads. Town Hall’s event shouldn’t be any less dramatic, with a setting expansive yet intimate, providing a space large enough to encapsulate Hegarty’s complex melodies while still allowing the audience to feel the immediacy of his words.