Archives for June 24, 2009

Here’s a photograph of the scale model of Hildegard Bechtler’s set for the opening scene of The Letter. The first thing the audience hears is gunfire on a darkened stage. Then the lights come up:

Cool, huh?

Erin McKeown, the singer-songwriter who has been praised many times in this space, is presenting a series of four live house concerts over the Web in order to raise funds to underwrite the release of her next album, Hundreds of Lions.
Says McKeown:

My new record, Hundreds of Lions, was made on my own dime and my own time, with no influence, input, or manipulation from any outside source. It has meant so much to me to be able to record the music I’ve written just as I imagined it to sound, with nothing lost in the translation.

The series, which McKeown calls “Cabin Fever,” will be aired on July 7 at seven p.m., July 16 at noon, July 22 at three p.m., and July 26 at five p.m. All times are EST and all performances will be telecast live from McKeown’s home in western Massachusetts. Tickets are $10 per show or $30 for the complete series.
For more information, go here.
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Here’s a video trailer for “Cabin Fever”:

Francis Poulenc, Jacques Février, Georges Prêtre and the Orchestra National de la RTF perform the first movement of Poulenc’s Two-Piano Concerto. Poulenc is the pianist on the left:

(This is the latest in a weekly series of arts-related videos that appear in this space each Wednesday.)

“I don’t care for success. The ideas sitting in my head are annoyed by, and envious of, that which I’ve already written.”
Anton Chekhov, letter to A.S. Suvorin (Oct. 27, 1888)