[Tickets: $20 / Students w. ID $10 at the door]
Internationally renowned concert pianist, recording artist, and performance researcher Dr. Donna Coleman, in conjunction with The Academy of European Arts and Culture will present Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Charles Ives: TheTranscendence of Words into Music, a ninety-minute concert-with-commentary featuring the performance of two movements of Charles Ives’s titanic Second Pianoforte Sonata (Concord, Mass., 1840–60).
The musical offerings will be preceded by readings from the philosophical-literary works of Emerson and Thoreau, as well as from Ives’s own Essays Before a Sonata, the spirit of which is drawn directly from Emerson’s eponymous writings. Insight into the relationship between Ives and Transcendentalism and demonstrations of the way he transforms the ideas conveyed by the written words into musical expression will follow. The evening will conclude with time dedicated to Q&A and discussion with Academy students and other members of the audience.
Dr. Donna Coleman weaves, writes, walks, studies, and photographs the stars, and contemplates the deepest mysteries of the Universe, which she transforms into rarefied interpretations of music ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach to Ragtime and Stride, from Domenico Scarlati to Charles Ives, from works composed for her yesterday to free improvisations, and everything in between.
