Salon/Sanctuary Concerts Presents MORE BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH, Starring Melissa Errico and Campbell Scott, Today

Please join us for the return of an original music-theatre piece drawn from the letters of Thomas Jefferson and the trailblazing 18th century polymath painter, singer, and composer Maria Cosway. Please stay for a post-performance dinner with the artists.

Staged environmentally in Fraunces Tavern, the 1719 structure where Jefferson wrote some of the letters to Cosway used in the script, More Between Heaven and Earth explores their moving and star-crossed relationship, the turbulence of the French Revolution, and Jefferson's revolutionary views about the role of religion in American society.

Igniting in Revolutionary Paris and unfolding over a 40-year epistolary relationship, the Jefferson/Cosway correspondence brims with exquisite music and eloquent prose, as the romance between two polymaths, the Statesman-Architect and the Musician-Painter, renders a vivid picture of musical life in 18th century France and America.

The Jefferson/Cosway letters reveal his evolving views on the Separation of Church and State intermingled with her account of a stifling marriage and the limited options open to a woman of brilliance. With an original script composed entirely of selections from their writings, this play with music features repertoire that they heard, composed, played, and sent to each other, including works of Corelli, Hewitt, Sacchini, and Cosway herself.

Please join us for this unique event and post-performance dinner at the historic Fraunces Tavern, where Jefferson served as the nation's first Secretary of State when the 1719 structure housed Washington's cabinet.

*Selections from Sacchini's opera Dardanus will be performed from editions created from the original 1786 score housed in the Gabe M. Wiener Music Library, Columbia University. Special thanks to Nicholas Patterson and Elise Figa.

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