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From:
Janos Gereben <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Moderated Classical Music List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:11:09 -0700
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[From the 6/20 SFCV.ORG]

Lemony Snicket, a.k.a. Daniel Handler, is teaming up with fellow San
Franciscan composer Nathaniel Stookey (an old schoolmate from Lowell
High School), to produce a music drama for children. Following in the
manner of the ominous title of "A Series of Unfortunate Events", the
work is to be called "The Composer Is Dead".

The commissioning San Francisco Symphony will give the world premiere
on July 8, in Davies Hall, at a Summer in the City Festival family
concert, conducted by Edwin Outwater. Perhaps not entirely a coincidence,
the performance is timed ahead of the publication of the next Lemony
Snicket book by HarperCollins. In fact, the plan is to record the
performance, and include a CD with the book.

Writer and composer describe "The Composer is Dead" as a whodunit murder
mystery combined with an introduction to the instruments of the orchestra,
a la the Prokofiev "Peter and the Wolf" and Britten's "The Young Person's
Guide to the Orchestra." The composer (the live one) does not believe
in restrained ambitions: "What Lemony Snicket and Harry Potter have done
for books, we want to do for music," Stookey says. "With his kids' books,
Lemony made something, ostensibly for children, that's not just for
children. This is something I've always wanted to do - to make something
people can access on all levels."

Mr. Snicket's explanation: "Ever since I was a boy, classical music has
made me weep uncontrollably. I hope "The Composer Is Dead" does the same
for a new generation. It's certainly either alarmingly original or
originally alarming."

Janos Gereben/SF
www.sfcv.org
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