Ex-FBI boss backs string quartet

Hoover was head of the FBI for almost 50 years

A piece of contemporary music featuring the voice of the deceased FBI boss J Edgar Hoover has its European première at a Manchester festival on Sunday.

Sing Sing: J Edgar Hoover will be performed by a string quartet and four voices at the Quartetfest at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Composer Michael Daugherty said the 1992 piece, featuring a tape recording of Hoover "brings the dead voice of Hoover to life through technology".

The festival runs from 8 to 11 January.

Quartetfest celebrates 250 years of the history of the string quartet and features workshops, lectures, master classes and performances.

'Greatest genre'

"One point is to celebrate the greatest genre in classical music," Christopher Rowland, the festival's director, told the Guardian newspaper.

"If you walk through a gallery, you will see the history of art. Here you will listen to the progress of a musical form in more than 20 concerts. The other point is to celebrate."

Hoover was the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1924 to his death in 1974 and helped transform it into the pre-eminent law enforcement body in the United States.

He was a notorious authoritarian and was rumoured to have amassed power by keeping dossiers on major figures in American life.

When he died, The New York Times wrote: "For nearly a half century, J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were indistinguishable. That was at once his strength and its weakness."

The tape of Hoover's voice was created by digitally sampling extracts of speeches delivered by the notorious boss from 1941 to 1972 to diverse audiences such as the American Legion, Boys' Club of America and the FBI National Academy.

The string parts convey a "sense of Hoover's grim, threatening yet darkly comic personality", said the composer.

Daugherty has also written music inspired by other US popular culture icons, such as Superman and Jackie Onassis.

Sing Sing: J. Edgar Hoover will be performed by the Ozarka quartet, an ensemble based at the college, one of 35 quartets from conservatoires and music schools around Britain to perform at the festival.