Martyrdom and Memories

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…

Musical Tales of a Winter’s Night

The great Italian writer Italo Calvino (pictured) is the inspiration for this year’s Benson Forum on Creativity, which brings together the music of Professor of Composition Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez and several Eastman student composers, the Eastman BroadBand ensemble (pictured below), and the bilingual Kairos Italy Theater troupe. They are collaborating for “If on a Winter’s Night…