On January 27th, 2023, Bohemia Records release LUCIA,multi-award nominated musician Joseph Chester's first major composition forclassical guitar & strings, commissioned by Axis Ballymun, Dublin, as partof the celebrations marking the centenary of James Joyce's Ulysses taking placein Dublin and globally on the 16th of June 2022. The suite, which was "inspiredby fragments of the life of Lucia Joyce," had its world premi�re performance inDublin on Bloomsday, 2022.
Lucia Joyce (daughter of James Joyce) spent 47 years ininstitutions as a result of mental illness, including long periods inisolation. She died in the notoriously cruel St. Andrew's asylum, Northamptonat the age of 75. And yet, in her youth she had shown enormous potential, as adancer and illustrator. Over the course of two years, Chester took ten keymoments from the life of Lucia Joyce, ten facts of her existence, and composeda piece of music for each, to pay tribute to her, to bear witness to her and,in some fantastical, imaginary way, let her speak. The Paris Times wrote that, "JamesJoyce may yet be known as his daughter's father." Some say she was a musefor Finnegans Wake. Her father described her as, "A fantastic being with a mindas clear and unsparing as the lightning." However, after undergoing tests, shewas diagnosed with schizophrenia and was committed in 1936.
She would never know freedom again.
Fragments Of Lucia is a solo guitar recital by JosephChester, of pieces from LUCIA to celebrate the release of the album.
