Please note: This post is a part of series.
Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons is sometimes described as a work of “verbal cubism.” Wrote Marcel Proust in a letter: “For several years, Beethoven’s late quartets and Franck’s music have been my primary spiritual nourishment.” You probably know that Karl Ove Knausgård wrote a music column when he was sixteen (covered: Simple Minds, Talking Heads, David Bowie, and Eric Clapton). And you?
At UMS we were inspired by the impact of performance on other kinds of creative work, so we started an Artists in Residence program.
Here at MQR, I hope to offer “small bites” of this experience. You’ll see a series of posts focusing on cross-pollination and inspiration in the arts. Alongside each post, UMS will offer up a pair of tickets to an Ann Arbor-area reader of the MQR Blog (it could be you!).
Jazz +Jazz = Jazz? Not Always
Jazz music has long influenced American literature. Langston Hughes wrote about jazz and read to jazz, Amiri Baraka was a jazz aficionado, and the impact of the genre can likewise be seen in novels such The Great Gatsby and On the Road.
Of course, the genre has range. On February 19, it’s Le Jazz Hot and 1920s Paris. A decade after it was first brought to the screen, composer-conductor Benoît Charest revives his music to the Oscar-nominated film The Triplets of Belleville with a remarkable cast of live musicians. It’s the sort of thing that might get you writing at the end of a Michigan February. And so, in the spirit of finding inspiration in jazz, we’re giving away two tickets to The Triplets of Belleville to one lucky fan of Michigan Quarterly Review.
To enter, comment on (or like) the link to this post on MQR’s Facebook page, or mention/like @mqr_tweets’s tweet about this post. Participate by January 30 to enter.
The winner will be selected at random and announced on MQR’s Facebook page. Meanwhile, tickets to The Triplets of Belleville are on sale over at UMS.
Image credit: Giulia Ponzetta, DensityDesign Research Lab.
