Providence Athenaeum Salon – Open Sesame: Consuelo Sherba, Aurea Artistic Director

This Open Sesame Salon will concentrate on the process involved in bringing together all the layers of the “Of Nature Composed” program which Sherba is developing for The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities What is the 21st Century Essay?, a series of programs to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize in 2016 through Pulitzer’s Campfires Initiative. The Aurea Ensemble combines music with the spoken word, bringing together both contemporary and classic compositions and texts to explore significant themes and inspire audiences, after the usual intense research and incubation period, with specific reference to the Athenæum’s Special Collections. Join us as Sherba discusses the process involved bringing together all the layers of this program.

For the “Of Nature Composed” performance scheduled for November 19 at The Granoff Center, the ensemble – including actor, Nigel Gore, actor/musician Chris Turner, and musicians, Katherine Winterstein, Megumi Stohs, Consuelo Sherba and Emmanuel Feldman – will feature music and writings of 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner John Luther Adams, John Cage and Charles Ives, music of ground-breaking Renaissance composer Johannes Ockeghem, words of contemporary Pulitzer Prize winning nature poets Galway Kinnell and Mary Oliver, as well as the naturalists, Henry David Thoreau and John Muir. Multi-media imagery will also will be integrated into the performance. The program will be a multi-disciplinary performance at the intersection of the arts, nature, science and the humanities to form a complex essay about the environment.

Funded by the Humanities Council, the Open Sesame Project brings together six artists/scholars working in different genres to research into the Athenæum’s extensive collections.

This project is also part of What is the 21st Century Essay?, a collaborative series of programs facilitated by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prizes in 2016. An exploration of the changing nature of journalism and the humanities in the digital age, What is the 21st Century Essay? programming thematically focuses on environmental issues because of their urgency and relevance to our health, communities, and economy. To learn more visit rihumanities.org/program/pulitzer.