Hem To Release Soundtrack For 'Twelfth Night' Featuring Vocals By Anne Hathaway; Filled With Never Before Head Music

As Hem’s Dan Messe recently told Billboard, the Brooklyn-based band’s soundtrack for the The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night features almost half an album’s worth of new, never before heard songs. The group ended up writing and composing much more than was included in the final show, as director Daniel Sullivan had to cut certain things because, as Messe puts it, “anything that got in the way of the drama was getting cut."

The soundtrack, out October 27 on Waveland/Nettwerk Records and featuring vocals from Anne Hathaway, Audra McDonald, Raúl Esparza, David Pittu and Jon Patrick Walker, features one duet Messe wrote specifically for Hathaway and McDonald, using lyrics from Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” It was never intended for the actual staging but “those two voices together was too tempting to pass up," Messe says. "So even though its a moment that never happened on stage it really happens on our album."

Hem received critical acclaim upon the debut of their original music in the production. “Lovely original songs,” wrote the New York Post, while the New York Times raved that Hem's “handsome” music added “color, wit, life to almost every scene…the sound evoking a distant era without straining for period authenticity,” and Newsday declared, “this exceptionally musical production has beautiful folky-Elizabethan-Irish-Scottish-doo-wop songs...someone, please, ask Hem to write a show.” In addition, New York Magazine called it “triumphant,” Variety called it “soul-stirring” and The Hollywood Reporter said the music is “hauntingly memorable.”

Full album can be streamed HERE

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