Poetry Foundation and Rush Hour Concerts at St. James Cathedral Present Inventions on Inventions: Poems Paired with J.S. Bach’s Three-Part Inventions

The First Invention, ear laid to earth, just listens
to the fingerlength beings moving segment by segment
through tiny tunnels, one inch shrugs out another.
As bamboo spreads in segments, joint by green joint…

-Anne Winters

CHICAGO — The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, in partnership with Rush Hour Concerts at St. James Cathedral present a free performance of Bach’s Three-Part Inventions paired with poetry on Tuesday, July 31st, at 5:15 p.m. at the St. James Episcopal Cathedral.

What: Bach’s Three-Part Inventions paired with poetry, featuring recitals by Kuang-Hao Huang, Diana Schmück, and Deborah Sobol. Poetry readings by Anne Winters, Kevin Coval, and Judith Valente.
When: Tuesday, July 31st, at 5:15 p.m.
Where: St. James Episcopal Cathedral, 65 East Huron Street (Huron & Wabash)
Admission to the event is free.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the Three-Part Inventions as exercises for his students, each Invention in a different key and each one meant to convey a single musical idea or lesson. This unique multi-media concert makes the Inventions exercises for three writers who have written brief poems that relate in mood or concept or melody to one of the Inventions.

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Kevin Coval is the author of Slingshots (A Hip-Hop Poetica), named Book of the Year-finalist by The American Library Association. Founder of Louder Than A Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival, the largest youth poetry festival in the world, Coval teaches at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago and the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he is the Minister of Hip-Hop Poetics.

Kuang-Hao Huang regularly performs concerts with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and as a guest of the Chicago Chamber Musicians

Diana Schmuck is a founding member of the Orion Ensemble. She has also appeared as a soloist and collaborator Symphony Center, Ravinia, WFMT, and the Chicago Cultural Center.

Deborah Sobol is the founder and artistic director of Rush Hour Concerts at St. James Cathedral. She is also a founding member of The Chicago Chamber Musicians. Her publications have appeared in Clavier and London’s Piano Journal.

Judith Valente is an award-winning poet and journalist. She was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism and has won numerous prizes for her poetry.

Anne Winters is on the faculty at UIC. Her books include The Displaced of Capital, The Key to City, which was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Prize, and Salamander: Selected Poetry of Robert Marteau, winner of Poetry’s Jacob Glatstein Translation Award. Her published poems and essays appear in The New Republic, The New Yorker, Paris Review, Poetry, and Yale Review, as well as journals in France, Canada and Italy.

For further details, and to sign up to receive email notices of Poetry Foundation events, please visit www.poetryfoundation.org.

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Featuring Grammy-nominated and other renowned performers from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, The Chicago Chamber Musicians and around the world, Rush Hour Concerts at St. James Cathedral returns to boost Chicago's summer culture quotient. Now entering its eighth season, the festival of weekly half-hour concerts, billed as "Great Music for Busy Lives", has attracted longtime classical music fans as well as those exploring the genre. Free and open to the public, the concerts take place at 5:45 p.m. each Tuesday, June through August, in the cathedral's sanctuary, Huron Street and Wabash Avenue. Light refreshments served at 5:15 p.m. precede the performance. More information is available at 773-338-9480 or www.rushhour.org.

The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is committed to a vigorous presence for poetry in our culture. One of the largest literary organizations in the world, the Foundation exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit www.poetryfoundation.org.


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