Saturday, March 16, 7:30 p.m.
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 121 West 12th Street, Davenport IA
The worlds of literature and music will blend in unique fashion on March 16 when Chamber Music Quad Cities hosts its Trinity Episcopal Cathedral presentation “An Evening with Nathan Hill,” with some of the ensemble's premiere talents performing thematically related compositions while Hill reads passages from his debut novel The Nix, a work cited by Entertainment Weekly as the best book of 2016.
A native Iowan who now lives in Naples, Florida, Hill’s nonfiction has appeared in Wired, ESPN the Magazine, and the New York Times Book Review, and his short stories have been published in literary journals including The Iowa Review, The Gettysburg Review, and Fiction, the latter of which awarded him its annual Fiction Prize. Described by Entertainment Weekly as a book that “contains multitudes and then some,” the periodical raved that Hill's first novel delivered “acid critique of millennial entitlement, videogame addiction, and clueless academia; tender meditation on childhood friendship, first loves, and maternal abandonment; and a handy tutorial on ’60s radicalism and Norwegian ghost mythology.” It also inspired bestselling, Oscar-winning writer John Irving to call Hill “the best new writer of fiction in America,” and led the New York Times Book Review to state, “Hill has so much talent to burn that he can pull off just about any style, imagine himself into any person, and convincingly portray any place or time.”
During Chamber Music Quad Cities' “An Evening with Nathan Hill,” the visiting author will read key passages from The Nix, introducing principal characters and leading plot lines, while the program's musicians – including CMQC director and pianist Thomas Sauer, Quad City Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Naha Greenholtz, and guest baritone Thomas West – will perform music drawn from the novel or chosen to illustrate passages as read by Hill. Musical works by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Grieg, John Cage, and Pete Seeger will be performed, along with one newly composed song that will be heard for the first time, and the evening will close with violinist Greenholtz’s performance of composer Max Bruch's “Violin Concerto No. 1.”
Admission to “An Evening with Nathan Hill” is $5-20, the March 16 performance starts at 7:30 p.m., and more information and tickets are available by e-mailing ChamberMusicQC@gmail.com or visiting ChamberMusicQC.org.
