Upcoming launch event—“Ways
of Listening”—scheduled for January 7th, 2010, at
The Brooklyn Historical Society in New York City.
For the launch of my first book, “Awake in
the Dark” (Scribner, New York: 2006 and 2007), a close friend,
composer Ben Moore, wrote a full-length piece of chamber music
in response to part of the book. We worked with a theater director,
actress and chamber music trio to create a musical-theatrical
piece, “The House on Kronenstrasse,” which was performed
at The Brooklyn Historical Society in New York and later showcased
at Lincoln Center. Working with these fine artists, across various
disciplines, on this collaborative project was a deeply rewarding
experience.
So…as the launch of my second book, “The
Listener,” rolled around (due on out New York with Scribner
in December, 2009, and in Australia with Simon and Schuster, in
February, 2010), I once again asked my composer friend if he’d
work with me on a launch event—and being a bit greedy, decided
to try to rope in more of my artist friends, each of whom has
also artistically explored some of the same themes I’ve
taken up in the book. To my delight, they were, to a person, enthusiastic
about participating.
We are currently putting together a kind of group
show, which we are calling “Ways of Listening.” Two
avant-garde documentary film-makers (Mark Street and Lynne Sachs),
a photographer (Simon Watson), composer (Ben Moore), dancer/choreographer
(Nanette de Cillis), and Shakespearean actor (Ezra Barnes) will
be creating work and/or performing.
Nanette de Cillis is working with a group of US
veterans from the Iraq war on an improvisational dance piece about
their war experiences, which she is calling “Still/Listening.”
Ben Moore is setting one or more poems by the World War I poet,
Wilfred Owen, to music. Mark Street is working with footage from
John Huston’s extraordinary documentary “Let There
be Light,” about American soldiers suffering from “war
neurosis” filmed in a psychiatric hospital, and Lynne Sachs
is working on a film about bodies and war.
Simon Watson, whose extraordinary photographs of
previously unseen rooms and spaces at the Auschwitz concentration
camp are on exhibition at the Auschwitz museum in Poland, is working
on other war-related photographs. Ezra Barnes, who most recently
played Prospero with Brave New World Theater Company in a performance
of “The Tempest,” staged on the boardwalk and beach
of Cony Island, will do a dramatic reading from “The Listener.”
The collaboration is already proving to be exciting;
it is a privilege to work with these visionary artists on subject
matter that is so close to my heart. As a fiction writer, my artistic
life tends to be solitary (typical, of course, for writers), so
this collaboration—opening up one’s own private, creative
space to join with others—is pure joy. (It also takes the
spotlight off me, during the launch season, which is a tremendous
relief!)
Awake in the Dark Launch Concert
Here's a description from The New York Times:
The collection, ''Awake in the Dark,'' out today
from Scribner, will celebrate its publication in a very unusual
way: a performance of portions of ''Kronenstrasse,'' which has
been set to music by the composer Ben Moore. The piece will
be presented tonight at St. Francis College Theater in Brooklyn
Heights, with the actress Andrea Masters and a trio of viola,
clarinet and piano.
What began as an effort to publicize ''Awake
in the Dark'' has turned into a full-blown artistic effort.
Mr. Moore, who has composed theater music, as well as songs
for Deborah Voigt and Susan Graham, will play the piano. Jimmy
Bohr will direct. The other musicians are the clarinetist Todd
Palmer and the violist David A. Carpenter, winner of the Philadelphia
Orchestra's 2005 student competition. All are performing without
pay. The piano store Klavierhaus is lending a Steinway.
