Happy birthday, Francis Poulenc!

Eastman Journal

We wish a Bonne annee et bonne anniversaire to the French composer Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) – shown above in a drawing by his friend Jean Cocteau. The combination of seriousness, lightheartedness, rich harmonies, and appealing melodies in Poulenc’s music has made it increasingly popular since his death. Here at Eastman we have seen recent performances…

Martyrdom and Memories

Eastman Journal

Is it possible that we die “not for ourselves alone, but for each other”? This is one of the questions at the heart of Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, this French composer’s most ambitious work and one of the great 20th-century operas. Set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, the opera tells the true…