Corey Dargel
Austin, TX
Corey Dargel is a Texas-born composer and singer-songwriter whom the New York Times calls “one of the more original and consistently provocative artists pushing at the margins of modern classical music and adventurous pop.” Minnesota Public Radio describes him as “a wonderfully difficult artist to define,” and The New Yorker praises his “baroquely unclassifiable… ingenious nouveau art songs.” Dargel has shared the stage with artists ranging from Owen Pallett, Joanna Newsom and Grizzly Bear, to the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the string quartet ETHEL, NOW Ensemble and the electric guitar quartet Dither. His fourth commercial album, OK It’s Not OK, songs about composure and depression, will be released in 2014 by New Amsterdam Records. Dargel studied composition at Oberlin Conservatory with John Luther Adams, Pauline Oliveros and Brenda Hutchinson. He is also a founding member of the Brooklyn-based experimental theater company, Laboratory Theater.
The Three Christs
Corey Dargel is a composer and singer-songwriter pushing at the margins of modern classical music and adventurous pop.
Artist BioThe Three Christs is a 90-minute music-theater piece by composer/lyricist Corey Dargel inspired by true stories of people who believe they are Jesus Christ. It takes a sideways look at the concept of fundamental beliefs. The Three Christs distorts and transforms real-life case studies of psychiatric patients with Messianic delusions by incorporating Christian gay-rehabilitation therapy sessions, visions of the Virgin Mary and a psychologist who, it turns out, may be as delusional as his patients. The piece is scored for four singers (including Dargel) and the amplified chamber ensemble, Newspeak.