e. e. cummings News

2013 MIDWINTER'S TALES: SIMPLE GIFTS - A Celebration of the Season in Music and Musings, benefiting both Oak Park Festival Theatre and Prevail (formerly Oak Park River Forest Walk In Ministry) will be held at 7 PM, Saturday, December 7, 2013, at the Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois.

21c Liederabend, op. 3, Beth Morrison Projects (BMP) and VisionIntoArt (VIA)'s festival of contemporary art song, brings two distinct programs to BAM as part of the 31st Next Wave Festival on Friday and Saturday, November 22 and 23, at 7:30 PM? at BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St, Brooklyn, NY).

Baltimore-based composer Jonathan Leshnoff's newest commissioned work, Monica Songs, featuring soprano Jessica Rivera and pianist Robert Spano, will receive its world premiere performance on Sunday, October 13, 2013 at U.C. Berkeley. The performance launches the five-city tour of this work, which also includes performances on Oct. 17 at Bailey Hall, Atlanta, Oct. 20 at Smothers Theatre, Malibu, Calif., Oct. 26 at Memorial Hall, Cincinnati and culminates in a performance on Oct. 29 at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York. Please see below for complete tour details.

Pontine Theatre announced its 36th performance season at the West End Studio Theatre in Portsmouth NH. This season, Pontine presents a four-event Performance Series, a three-event Cafe-Lyceum Series, a five-event 'Humanities-To-Go' Series, and its annual WEST-FEST New Vaudeville Holiday Shows. Pontine is a resident company at the West End Studio Theatre located at 959 Islington Street in Portsmouth, NH. Contact the company at -- info@pontine.org or 603-436-6660.

Heart to Heart was a concert of two very different cycles of love songs by Adelaide composer, David Kotlowy. The first was for guitar and tenor, whilst the other was for a small Javanese gamelan group, tenor, and soprano.

On Tuesday, October 29 at 7:30 p.m., sopranoJessica Rivera and mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor are joined by pianist Robert Spanoon a program featuring three New York premieres, two of which are Carnegie Hall co-commissions. Ms. O'Connor and Ms. Rivera have collaborated in concert halls and on modern operatic masterpieces including Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar and John Adams's El Niño. This unique program features Ms. O'Connor performing the New York premiere of David Bruce's That Time With You, a four-song cycle that she co-commissioned with Carnegie Hall. Ms. Rivera sings the New York premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff's Monica Songs, another Carnegie Hall co-commission. Two selections from The Kitchen Songbook by Gabriela Lena Frank will also have their New York debuts, sung by both Ms. O'Connor and Ms. Rivera. Completing this diverse program, the artists present vocal duets by Saint-Saens, Mendelssohn, and Gounod, as well as Debussy's erotically charged Chansons de Bilitis and Mompou's haunting "Combat del Somni."

Mathematics of Love is a poetry collection in the tradition of E. E. Cummings, Jose Garcia Villa and Dylan Thomas. Cowen embraces the postmodern craft of creating 'sullen art.' Villa helped Cowen build his poetic craft as his mentor and friend, and the residues of his influence can be clearly discerned. 'Concise, witty, subtle, these works move on the page with the ease of seasoned dancers on the stage. Cowen has a distinct taste for the lyrical, with a poetic lineage that includes Jose Garcia Villa, E. E. Cummings, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, and Emily Dickinson. And his language is as alive as it is exacting. The poems in Mathematics will leave you, as the poet declares in one, 'feeling / closely lobbied / by a / widened soul.' Amen!' -Luis H. Francia, author, Museum of Absences 'Like his mentor Jose Garcia Villa, John Edwin Cowen is a brave poet. He takes poetic risks with language and the result is often a beautiful flower behind the barbed wire of craftsmanship. I love the variety of poems in Mathematics of Love and the charged-up voice that powers all the work. He can be tender, challenging, energetic, and as complex musically as Villa and his other love, Dylan Thomas. I recommend this book to all those who care about poetry and who care about the human spirit.' -Peter Thabit Jones, Swansea Poetry Magazine John Edwin Cowen is the Parnasus Literary Journal's first prize winner in international competition. He has published poems widely in major literary magazines and is a former co-publisher of Bravo: The Poet's Magazine, founded in 1980 by the late poet, Jose Garcia Villa. He is editor of the Penguin Classics centennial volume: Doveglion: The Collected Poems of Jose Garcia Villa, published in 2008. Cowen is a Professor of Literacy and Education at Fairleigh Dickinson University. He earned his doctorate at Columbia University. Mathematics of Love: Poems by John Edwin Cowen is the poet's first published collection of poems. (Soft Cover: $15, Hard Cover: $30, ISBNs: 978-1-937536-01-5/ 978-1-937536-08-4, LCCN: 2011939734, 6X9?, 134pp) Anaphora Literary Press is an independent publisher that has published dozens of creative and non-fiction books. Among these publications is the Pennsylvania Literary Journal, a tri-annual journal, which has published best-selling authors like Cinda Williams Chima and Carrie Ryan. The press is a member of The Independent Book Publishers Association and The Council of Editors of Learned Journals. Anaphora authors have done readings at major venues. Several titles have been assigned in college classes, and reviewed in major academic, trade and news publications. The Press' Director, Anna Faktorovich, is an English professor.

Cornelia Street Cafe proudly presents Happy Birthday W.B. Yeats, an evening of poetry by the famous Irish poet as part of its ongoing poetry series. The Yeats tribute will take place tonight, June 10th at 6 and features Bernadette Quigley, Dee Nelson, Jarlath Conroy and Paul Hecht with original music by composer/pianist Ellen Mandel and tenor Michael Slattery.

Cornelia Street Cafe proudly presents Happy Birthday W.B. Yeats, an evening of poetry by the famous Irish poet as part of its ongoing poetry series. The Yeats tribute will take place on Monday, June 10th at 6 and features Bernadette Quigley, Dee Nelson, Jarlath Conroy and Paul Hecht with original music by composer/pianist Ellen Mandel and tenor Michael Slattery.

Category 7 in association with La Salle Academy and Nativity Mission announces the cast and creative team for Stand-Up Tragedy, Bill Cain's searing 1991 play about a Lower East Side middle school, where an idealistic young teacher sets out to save one of his students from an abusive family and the streets. Directed by Nicholas Minas, performances begin at Nativity Church (44 2nd Avenue - between 2nd & 3rd Streets) tonight, April 12, 2013 and will continue through May 4.

Category 7 in association with La Salle Academy and Nativity Mission announces the cast and creative team for Stand-Up Tragedy, Bill Cain's searing 1991 play about a Lower East Side middle school, where an idealistic young teacher sets out to save one of his students from an abusive family and the streets. Directed by Nicholas Minas, performances begin at Nativity Church (44 2nd Avenue - between 2nd & 3rd Streets) on Saturday, April 12, 2013 and will continue through May 4.

Recently compared to pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard and David Greilsammer by New York Times reviewers Anthony Tommasini and Vivien Schweitzer in reviews of her appearances at New York's Carnegie Hall and Le Poisson Rouge, pianist Jenny Q Chai (www.JennyChai.com) presents her lecture-recital "Dissecting Stroppa" - An Analysis of "Innige Cavatina" from Miniature Estrose by Marco Stroppa -- on Monday Dec. 3rd, 7:30 PM, at The William R. and Irene D. Miller Hall, Manhattan School of Music, 120 Claremont Avenue, in New York City. Tel: 212 749 2802. Free Admission.

Recently compared to pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard and David Greilsammer by New York Times reviewers Anthony Tommasini and Vivien Schweitzer in reviews of her appearances at New York's Carnegie Hall and Le Poisson Rouge, pianist Jenny Q Chai (www.JennyChai.com) presents her lecture-recital "Dissecting Stroppa" - An Analysis of "Innige Cavatina" from Miniature Estrose by Marco Stroppa -- on Monday Dec. 3rd, 7:30 PM, at Miller Hall, Manhattan School of Music, 120 Claremont Avenue, in New York City. Tel: 212 749 2802. Free Admission.

Tonight, November 13 at 7:00pm, New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) opens a new season of its contemporary music mini-series NYFOS Next with CARLA KIHLSTEDT & FRIENDS at Mary Flagler Cary Hall in the DiMenna Center for Classical Music.

On Tuesday, November 13 at 7:00pm, New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) opens a new season of its contemporary music mini-series NYFOS Next with CARLA KIHLSTEDT & FRIENDS at Mary Flagler Cary Hall in the DiMenna Center for Classical Music.

Kent Kritle's 2012-2013 season marks his 30th year conducting in New York City. The landmark season includes Britten's War Requiem with the Oratorio Society of New York, Bach's Mass in B Minor with at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Mendelssohn's Elijah at the Manhattan School of Music, and travels across the U.S. for Carnegie Hall's National High School Choral Festival. See full details below.

Kent Kritle's 2012-2013 season marks his 30th year conducting in New York City. The landmark season includes Britten's War Requiem with the Oratorio Society of New York, Bach's Mass in B Minor with at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Mendelssohn's Elijah at the Manhattan School of Music, and travels across the U.S. for Carnegie Hall's National High School Choral Festival. See full details below.

The annual season of new plays at Summer Works is presented the Obie Award-winning theater company Clubbed Thumb -- has announced complete casting for its 17th season running May 26 to June 30 at the HERE Arts Center (145 Sixth Ave. at Dominick Street) in Manhattan.

Soulpepper Theatre Company is one of the most successful theatre companies in Canada, and growing every day. What began as a group of twelve actors who wanted to tell classical theatre stories has grown into one of the largest theatre companies in Toronto and one of the most well respected in the country. They've enjoyed many sold-out productions in the last few years, and have been responsible for the growth and development of new Canadian works, including the smash hit Kim's Convenience, which has arguably been the most talked-about Canadian play of the last twelve months.