Poetry Reading with Barbara Bechtolsheim and Margaret Gibson
  • September 3, 2022 - 5:00 PM
  • Gordon Hall, Music Mountain
  • Free

Poetry Reading with Barbara Bechtolsheim and Margaret Gibson

5 PM: Connecticut’s Poet Laureate, Margaret Gibson will read poems about living as "one body" with the Earth. Author Barbara Bechtolsheim will present a poetic dialogue with Haydn and Beethoven.

This free Poetry Reading with Barbara Bechtolsheim and Margaret Gibson takes place on Saturday, September 3, at 5 pm, at Gordon Hall, 225 Music Mountain Rd, Falls Village (Canaan), CT. Please allow a few minutes to park (free parking) and settle in Gordon Hall. This event ends at 6:30 pm, allowing all in attendance to enjoy a crepe, a glass of wine, or your own picnic before the 7 pm concert starts.

Crepe Royale will be on site with sweet and savory crepes made to order. There are picnic tables on the great lawn. So, please plan for a fun event with great poetry and crepes at Music Mountain this Saturday!

Attached at the bottom is the entire schedule for Saturday & Sunday, in case you wish to attend other events taking place during the weekend — 4 events on Saturday and 2 events on Sunday.


5 PM PROGRAM DETAILS

PART 1:

A Poetic Dialoge with Haydn and Beethoven

Barbara v. Bechtolsheim

Franz Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven might be called the pioneers of the string quartet. Not only does Music Mountain honor them, their music and their lives resonate with American poetry of the 20th century. The presentation is a collage of such poems, music recordings of pieces they refer to, and remarks highlighting their meaning and relevance for us to create a poetic dialogue between the music and the poetry. 


The author and cultural studies scholar Barbara von Bechtolsheim, PhD, studied German literature, philosophy, and psychology at the University of Munich, Germany, and at Stanford University. Since receipt of her PhD at Stanford she has worked as a free lance author and literary translator and taught courses on American and German literature and on Intercultural Skills at Free University Berlin, at School of Applied Sciences HMKW in Berlin, and at Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany. Her recent book on creative couples, Paare, was published in January 2022 at Insel publishing house in Berlin, Germany. For decades, Barbara has been a passionate musician playing the flute in various chamber music ensembles. She is an associate research scholar at Yale University and lives in Hamden, CT.  


PART 2:

Living as "One Body" with the Earth

Margaret Gibson

Reading from a body of work that includes 13 published books of poems, Margaret Gibson will offer poems about living as "one body" with the Earth. These poems celebrate the beauty of this Earth, paying attention to it, deepening kinship with other living beings—and in this time of global climate emergency, grieving. These are poems lit with inner and outer sunlight and the energy of love.


“Margaret Gibson has created a voice and an art that connect the sensuous experience of the physical world with the inner life,” Pattiann Rogers has written. Nationally and internationally acclaimed, Margaret Gibson poetry is characterized by an uncommon diversity. The voice may be predominantly lyrical and meditative, and yet there are award-winning, book-length narratives in which she fully inhabits the consciousness of her personae. Hers is “a finely crafted lyricism and attention to detail rare among poets today,” wrote Brian Henry. Gibson herself has said, “Writing poetry is an act of attention and receptivity. You study whatever it is that strikes your attention—whether a scarlet tanager, river, field, or forest, whether mother, daughter, alcoholic, photographer, lover. You take what’s given into that part of the self that inquires, test, embraces, and embodies. Outer and inner coalesce and fuse.”

“Everything is ultimately connected; everything, therefore, is both personal and impersonal. We’re part of an enormous, sometimes painful, sometimes joyful experience of unfolding Consciousness.”

“We’re here to find the things that are broken and to mend them, to find where there is fracture or division and to create a wholeness.”




FULL SATURDAY SCHEDULE:

11:00 am: Free Family Concert

Designed for families with young children and youth, and open to music lovers of all ages, this is a 50-minute long free interactive performance by the Merz Trio including Q+A and audience participation. Crepe Royale will be on site with sweet and savory crepes made to order. READ MORE & SIGN UP

5:00 pm: Free Program of Poetry

Connecticut’s Poet Laureate, Margaret Gibson will read poems about living as "one body" with the Earth. Author Barbara Bechtolsheim will present a poetic dialogue with Haydn and Beethoven. This event ends at 6:30 pm, allowing all in attendance to enjoy a crepe, a glass of wine, or your own picnic before the 7 pm concert starts. READ MORE & SIGN UP

7:00 pm: Merz Trio “Ink Spills” Ticketed Concert

Merz Trio offers a unique and personal account of Ravel’s Piano Trio, a work he finished penning in 1914 at a time of immense catastrophe and change for Europe and the world. Ranging from the court of Louis XV to the 21st century, the program places Ravel not only within an immensely rich, multinational tradition (French and Basque), but also includes a number of works from the immediate decades around the Trio's composition, interweaving the work with pieces Ravel himself would have known and heard. Throughout the concert, Merz Trio's members will contribute readings of poetry and prose that further illuminate the music and speak to the era. Tickets are $45-55 ($15 for Students; free for ages 18 and under). BUY TICKETS

8:30 pm: Free Stargazing led by Roger Liddell

Join us immediately following the concert to observe the stars with various telescopes (provided) or, if the skies are not clear, for a thrilling presentation in Gordon Hall with recent images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Telescopes are provided, but you are welcome to bring your own. READ MORE & SIGN UP


FULL SUNDAY SCHEDULE:

1:30 PM: Free Birdsong Walk

Come to Music Mountain to walk the grounds (weather permitting) with Fran Zygmont of the Litchfield Hills Audubon Society and learn about and listen to the birds that live here. Then come into air-conditioned Gordon Hall to learn about the link between birdsong and Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time (hint: Messiaen was a composer and an ornithologist). Open to families and all ages. You are welcome to bring your own binoculars and cameras. READ MORE & SIGN UP

3:00 PM: Music Mountain Benefit Concert

Music Mountain Artistic Director, Oskar Espina-Ruiz, clarinet, joins forces with Merz Trio to present Messiaen’s iconic Quartet for the End of Time, considered to be one the most important twentieth-century chamber music compositions. Written and premiered whilst in a German prisoner-of-war camp at the beginning of WWII, the work draws inspiration from birdsong and Indian ragas. Tickets are $60-70 in Gordon Hall; $15 Lawn (Audio Only); $15 for Students; Free for ages 18 and under. BUY TICKETS


FOOD AT MUSIC MOUNTAIN ON SATURDAY & SUNDAY:

Crepe Royale will be on site with sweet and savory crepes made to order: all day on Saturday (except for a short break from 12-3 pm); and from 12:30 pm on Sunday.

On Saturday, our concessions stand will sell fine wines, ice cream, coffee, tea and pastries from 4 pm. On Sunday we will open our concessions stand at 12:30 pm, selling refreshments, ice cream, coffee, tea and pastries.


OTHER FAMILY EVENTS IN THE AREA:

Labor Day is typically a busy weekend in our area. In addition to all the wonderful cafes and restaurants, check out THE GOSHEN FAIR, a great annual event. 

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email us at info@musicmountain.org.


Location

Gordon Hall, Music Mountain
225 Music Mountain Road
Falls Village, Connecticut 06031