Dear Poetry Friends
Saturday 23 November 2024, 7pm
St Mary’s Church, 2 Elsworthy Road, Primrose Hill, London NW3 3DU
REFLECTING DEEPLY IN AN AGE OF ANXIETY
a concert of piano music and poetry with Robin Rubenstein and Graham Fawcett
As you know, my Newsletters are almost always no more often than monthly.
But the special nature of this concert is prompting me to push it as hard as I can in every direction. If you are in London, please come ! If you are outside London and have friends within reach of Primrose Hill, would you consider letting them know about it? It promises to be a significant experience of music and the spoken word which will make listening as active as performing.
We have already had some very affirmative messages from those who can’t be there.
One wrote: “Your joint concert of Robin’s piano music and poetry on 23rd November promises to be a very necessary and wonderful evening”.
So I have written a new introduction to the evening on the web-page @ https://www.grahamfawcett.co.uk/event/reflectingdeeplyinanageofanxiety-2/. Do take a look. I’m trying to put across what it means to us and why we believe it so much right now.
Robin writes: “Our evening of reflection through music and the spoken word is starkly relevant after the recent US election.
In recognising people’s sense of unease, we want to show how poetry and music can help us all navigate these difficult times.
I am an American pianist, long resident in London, and Graham has just returned from having spent two months in New York and Nebraska where he experienced the build up and aftermath of the US Election”.
Robin Rubenstein
Graham Fawcett
Graham writes:
“The result of the American Election on November 5th has changed the face
of anxiety across the world. What can poets and composers offer us at a moment
like this, to help us deal with it?
The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor insists that art is no mere treat or diversion. “I may prefer vanilla ice cream to strawberry”, he says, “but I must have air to breathe. Is listening to Beethoven more like preferring vanilla ice cream or more like needing to breathe?”
Ukraine is on yet another knife-edge. The Middle East is in jeopardy. Afghanistan goes on suffering in the shadows of yesterday’s news. We either worry, or try to force ourselves not to. Somehow we have to live with being non-participating and reluctant witnesses. Music and poetry move the mountains of thought we condemn ourselves to climb, or the unthinking states we get into. Each of tonight’s composers and poets stepped up to the plate, outstared the nightmare, wrestled with their fear, and wrote it all down.
PROGRAMME (music and poem titles will be revealed on the night)
Matthew Arnold
Frederic Chopin
W H Auden
Dante Alighieri
Bela Bartok
Louis MacNeice
Adrienne Rich
Sergei Prokofiev
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
INTERVAL
John Donne
William Byrd
Anna Akhmatova
Dmitri Shostakovich
Guillaume Apollinaire
Georges Antheil
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Matthew Arnold
Emily Dickinson
Franz Schubert
To read how the idea of this concert came about and how to book tickets, go to https://www.grahamfawcett.co.uk/event/reflectingdeeplyinanageofanxiety-2/
PROGRAMME NOTES ON THE MUSIC AND POETRY WILL BE HANDED OUT ON THE NIGHT
Thank you for reading !
Very best wishes
Graham