Songs I Learned from my Grandmother

LATE-NIGHT LAGNIAPPE

Composer and pianist George Maurer leads an ensemble of Festival artists in a bouquet of music ranging from hymns to Japanese folksongs and Maurer’s new settings of poetry by Williams, Mishima, and Rilke.

Join Minnesota-based composer and jazz pianist George Maurer (Autumn Song, 2012 Festival) and an ensemble of Festival artists for a late-night bouquet of music ranging from Episcopalian hymns to Japanese folksongs and Maurer’s new settings of poetry by Williams, Mishima, and Rilke.

The inspiration is music Tennessee Williams and Yukio Mishima might have heard thanks to their grandmothers. Rose Dakin (1863-1944), Tennessee Williams’ mother’s mother, taught piano and violin, and appeared as a benevolent spirit for Williams in life and in his writing The Angel in the Alcove and Vieux Carre (2014 Festival). Hiraoka Natsuko (1876- 1939), Mishima’s father’s mother, took him from his parents and raised him with the help of her maids until her death when Mishima was 14. Natsuko encouraged her grandson to write, taught upper class manners and diction by example, and introduced Mishima to Kabuki.

Round out your Festival experience with a nocturnal celebration that will enrich and inform the shows you're seeing by day, performed with musical aplomb by a wide range of artists.