In conjunction with the exhibition Walt Whitman: Bard of Democracy, on view at The Morgan Library & Museum, composer and conductor Matthew Aucoin curates an evening of spoken word and music featuring Walt Whitman's letters and poems with musical excerpts from Aucoin's 2015 opera Crossing and works by John Adams and Leonard Bernstein. Featuring Matthew Aucoin, piano, Ben Lerner, poet/writer, with additional artists to be announced. The exhibition will be open at 6:30 pm for concert attendees.
Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, writer, and pianist. He is a 2018 MacArthur Fellow and Artist in Residence at Los Angeles Opera, and has worked as a composer and conductor with the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the American Repertory Theater, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Music Academy of the West. He is co-Artistic Director of the American Modern Opera Company.
Ben Lerner is a widely celebrated novelist, poet, and critic. His publications include the poetry collections The Lichtenberg Figures (2004), Angle of Yaw, and Mean Free Path; the novels Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04; an artist's book, Blossom (with Thomas Demand); and The Hatred of Poetry, among others.
Co-presented by the Morgan Library & Museum and Poetry Society of America.
Tickets: Purchase here.
$35; $25 for members of The Morgan & PSA
The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
