LESELUST: Fantasy and Partita in C.
Concert reading for Erich Kästner's anniversary year with Arna Aley and Jonathan Golove: on 26 April, Neue Sächsische Galerie, TIETZ
On Friday 26 April at 7 pm, the Lithuanian author and first literature scholarship holder of the City of Chemnitz, Arna Aley, will read a text based on Erich Kästner's novel "Fabian oder: Der Gang vor die Hunde" at the Neue Sächsische Galerie in the TIETZ. The internationally performing American solo cellist Jonathan Golove will accompany the evening with music.
Admission costs 6 euros, concessions 4 euros. Registration is possible at: https://www.stadtbibliothek-chemnitz.de/aktuelles/veranstaltungen/veranstaltungsbuchung.
In his most famous characters such as Fabian or Emil and the Detectives, Erich Kästner depicted social conflicts that still concern us today. The scenic fantasy "Das ewig Menschliche zieht uns hinab" (Following Fabian) by Arna Aley was commissioned by the Munich Volkstheater and celebrated its world premiere there in November 2023. The text builds bridges between Erich Kästner's novel "Fabian" and our present day. A century after the hero of Kästner's novel drowned in the Elbe in Dresden, he finds himself as F. in a train compartment on the Erzgebirge railway, together with other "reality deniers" and an AI assistant who will not be dissuaded from her dubious political standpoint. The passengers are kept on their toes by Mrs M. (alias Irene Moll), a train attendant who acts like a tamer.
Partita no. 1 for solo cello (Songs & Poems) by Philipp Glass, a seven-movement work dedicated to cellist Wendy Sutter and premiered by her in New York in January 2007, is based on Glass' film score for "Taiji: Chaotic Harmony", a visual shamanic journey between heaven and earth, along New York's underground lines and streets and the sacred river. The music of Philip Glass is often referred to as the "soundtrack to our time".
Arna Aley, Lithuanian author, musician and director, and Jonathan Golove, solo cellist, composer, professor at the University of Buffalo (USA) and artistic director of the "Robert and Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music" and the "June in Buffalo" festival, met at the Kunstfest Weimar 2019 and have been engaged in a lively artistic exchange ever since.
The event is part of the ninth edition of the Chemnitz Literature Festival Leselust, which is taking place in compact form this year from 19 to 27 April.