Poet's Life Told Through Song at Stissing Center

Joseph Sobol's 'In the Deep Heart's Core' blends storytelling, music and poetry in an intimate stage portrait of William Butler Yeats.

Mar. 13, 2026 at 3:54am

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On March 27, Joseph Sobol will bring his song cycle, 'In the Deep Heart's Core,' to the Grace Note at Stissing Center. The work is a musical biography of William Butler Yeats, tracing the poet's life from his early years through his middle period to his later reckoning with mortality. Sobol, who has been developing the project since the early 1980s, describes it as 'a persistent piece of work, still evolving.'

Why it matters

The production, whose title is taken from the closing line of Yeats' poem 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree,' has been central to Sobol's creative life for decades. It reflects his own artistic evolution and his deep engagement with Yeats' blend of scholarly inquiry, poetic imagination, political engagement and mysticism.

The details

Sobol first set Yeats' poem 'A Young Man's Song' to music in 1982, and over the years, more poems followed. The March 27 performance at Stissing Center features piano, vocals, fiddle, and cello. Sobol's 'mystic cabaret,' as he calls it, has enjoyed an eight-month run at Chicago's Bailiwick Repertory Theater and has traveled nationally and throughout Ireland, appearing at venues including the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and the National Concert Hall in Dublin.

  • On March 27, Joseph Sobol will bring his song cycle, 'In the Deep Heart's Core,' to the Grace Note at Stissing Center.
  • In 1983, Sobol enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to pursue a master's degree in folklore.
  • In 1994, Sobol earned his Ph.D. thesis at Northwestern University, which investigated the contemporary revival of storytelling in America.
  • In 2015, the show was mounted at Thoor Ballylee, the 15th-century tower in County Galway that Yeats bought in 1917 and lived in until 1929.
  • In 2022, Sobol retired from academia and returned to the United States with his wife, settling in Amenia.

The players

Joseph Sobol

A musician, storyteller, and academic who has been developing the 'In the Deep Heart's Core' project since the early 1980s.

William Butler Yeats

An Irish poet whose life and work are the subject of Sobol's 'In the Deep Heart's Core' song cycle.

Grace Paley

A legendary short story writer, activist, and teacher who taught a seminar at Sarah Lawrence College that inspired Sobol's interest in Yeats.

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What they’re saying

“In my 20s I identified with Yeats' early and middle periods. Those poems suggest a kind of adolescent striving after the pain that yields wisdom.”

— Joseph Sobol

“The tone, tenor, and lyric would dictate to me the musical response. As the work developed, different idioms came to bear on the compositions.”

— Joseph Sobol

What’s next

The March 27 performance at Stissing Center will feature piano, vocals, fiddle, and cello, as Sobol continues to refine and evolve his 'In the Deep Heart's Core' project.

The takeaway

Sobol's 'In the Deep Heart's Core' is a long-running, deeply personal project that reflects his own artistic evolution and his lifelong fascination with the works of William Butler Yeats, blending storytelling, music, and poetry in an intimate stage portrait of the Irish poet.