What a REMARKABLE night of story and poetry interspersed with the history of the composers who created the music to put to these stories.
Marianne opened the program with the story of how Scheherazade set in motion a plan to save herself from being beheaded, like all the other wives of the King Shahriyar, by using the power of story, and did so for 1001 Arabian Nights! There is a really interesting story about this on NPR Saturday morning:
Rimsky-Korsakov Lets the Symphony Tell the Story, the program talks about how the music tells the story, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10120287 (personally I’d listen to Marianne hands down!)
David followed with an epic poem about Fingal’s Cave. It’s a sea cave on the uninhabited island of Staffa, in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland, known for its natural acoustics. Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn visited in 1829 and wrote an overture, The Hebrides, Op. 26, (also known as Fingal’s Cave overture), inspired by the weird echoes in the cave. The poem David spoke of makes me want to head for the Scotland coast to see and hear this amazing cave. Check out the pictures of it here: http://tinyurl.com/fingalcave
Mike brought the Wild West alive in a poem written by Bill May that honors everything that we love about our western town. It was referenced to the music of John Williams score for, The Cowboys a score from the movie in 1972 about a rancher Will Andersen who is forced to take on a collection of young boys as his drivers in order to get his herd to market in time since all the cowboys have left for the gold fields. MIke makes a great cowboy by the way… I missed the title of the poem but I’m wondering if it was from The Cowboy on the Last Frontier Collection?
The evening ended with Marianne returning to tell the tale of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, complete with a full costume to take us to a different place at a different time. I was mesmerized!! I left the event with such inspiration. What REMARKABLE talent is among us tellers of tales….. A huge applause and Thanks to Mike, David, and Marianne, for a wonderful event!
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