Electric Earth Concerts will present Project Orfeo, a concert that combines readings by novelist Richard Powers with the music of Olivier Messiaen and composer Scott Lindroth, inspired by Powers’ 2014 novel “Orfeo.”
The concert will take place in Bass Hall at the Monadnock Center for History and Culture on Saturday, Aug. 27, at 7:30 p.m.
Author of 11 novels including “The Time of Our Singing” and “The Echo Maker,” Powers joins composer Scott Lindroth, the Horzsowski Piano Trio, clarinetist Benjamin Fingland, and EEC artistic directors Laura Gilbert, flute, and Jonathan Bagg, viola, in a mixed-media presentation that combines readings from Powers’ 2014 novel “Orfeo” with performances of Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” and the premiere a new Lindroth composition.
The event will weave passages from “Orfeo” through performances of both compositions, placing them in the context of the novel’s central topic — the struggle of contemporary composers to find a revelatory new musical language for our time.
Powers’ book discourses on 20th-century masterpieces, while he imagines a yet-to-be-written music for the 21st-century, music that might be derived from existing natural or scientific phenomena. Lindroth’s new work takes up the challenge of the writer’s imaginings, and the entire evening will present a dialogue between composer, writer, and performers.
Admission is $25. For more information or to reserve tickets, visit Electricearthconcerts.org.