Most of the time I’d really rather stay home. I have to fight the good fight against inertia. Maybe you do too! Today’s post features five ways to drench yourself with words unspoken, to live your life with arms wide open – to feel the rain on your skin.  I’m featuring Nashville events, but I hope this list will inspire you wherever you live.

1. See a ballet with more than a little skin in the game…

Nashville Ballet presents Lizzie Borden

OCTOBER 26-28, 2017
TPAC’S POLK THEATER

This production contains nudity and adult themes.

Lizzie Borden
Choreography by Nashville Ballet Artistic Director & CEO Paul Vasterling
Music by Philip Feeney
Based on the True Infamous Murder Trial from the 1890s

The Raven
Choreography by Nashville Ballet Company Dancer Christopher Stuart
Based on the Poem by Edgar Allan Poe

Did she or didn’t she? Viewers will judge for themselves when Lizzie Borden’s real-life double homicide case of 1892 hauntingly unfolds on stage this Halloween. Acquitted for the brutal axe murders of her father and stepmother, Lizzie Borden’s notorious courtroom trial remains one of the most controversial and sensationalized in American history. Nashville Ballet’s gripping interpretation takes audiences into the mind of the woman embroiled in the scandal to show that there may be more to the story than previously thought. The world premiere of The Raven explores Edgar Allan Poe’s dark poem by blending movement with a classical score and elements of spoken word.

Tickets and more information here.

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2. Be transported by music you’ve never heard in a church before…

Intersection presents Veils and Vesper

OCTOBER 13-17, 2017
BELMONT UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

Music has been influenced by the natural world since its first notes, and John Luther Adams is at the forefront of the contemporary environmental conversation. Written in 2005, Adams’ Veils and Vesper is a meditative reflection on nature and our interactions within it. It is an electronic work informed by an interplay of synthetic sounds and mathematical algorithm based on the prime numbers, resulting in a sensuous, ever-changing soundscape. In this six-hour work, Adams combines four distinct sections (“Falling Veil,” “Crossing Veil,” “Rising Veil” and “Vesper”) into a singular work. As guests explore the installation, the work evolves uniquely around each person’s experience. Veils and Vesper can be experienced in segments or in one visit, and we encourage everyone to visit the installation in the way they feel most appropriate.   

Friday, October 13th:  2pm-8pm
Saturday, October 14th: 12pm-6pm
Sunday, October 15th: 1pm-7pm
Monday, October 16th: 2pm-8pm
Tuesday, October 17th: 10am-4pm

Tickets and more information here.

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Atlantic Ocean (July 12, 2004) — The guided missile destroyer USS Barry (DDG 52) steams through the Atlantic Ocean while participating in Majestic Eagle 2004.

3: Take a deep dive into international affairs…

Vanderbilt presents the Chancellor’s Lecture Series: Beyond the Horizon: 21st Century Global Security and Risk

OCTOBER 3, 2017
Reception 5:30-6:30 p.m. – INGRAM HALL LOBBY – BLAIR SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Lecture 6:30-7:30 p.m. – INGRAM HALL – BLAIR SCHOOL OF MUSIC

Admiral James Stravridis joins Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos and Vanderbilt Distinguished Visiting Professor Jon Meacham to share his thoughts, considerable expertise, and informed perspective on world security and the fate of America’s decades-old role on the international stage.

“The Sea is One. By that, I mean it is all interconnected and as such, we are all interconnected. The Sea evokes poetry and history, enables trade between nations, and presents geopolitical threats. These are themes that have ebbed and flowed throughout history, but have never receded. However, as the political tides grow more turbulent, it’s time for all hands on deck.“ -Admiral James Stavridis, US Navy (retired)

Tickets, which are free and available on a first-come basis, are required for this lecture. There is a limit of 4 tickets per person, and they must be picked up at the Sarratt Student Center Box Office. For hours of operation, please call 615-343-3361. For more information, please click here.

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4.  Sing a Love Song to the Sun….

Tracy Silverman and Vanderbilt University Orchestra present “Love Song to the Sun”

OZ ARTS Nashville
October 5, 2017

“Love Song to the Sun” is an electric violin concerto written by and featuring Tracy Silverman, utilizing interactive projections to tell a story of survival and surrender.

Scored for full symphony and featuring the Vanderbilt University Orchestra – 84 undergraduates from the Blair School of Music – “Love Song to the Sun” tells the dramatic, autobiographical, one-day life story of a tiny bug, through Silverman’s 6-part musical score, with prepared and live interactive video projections by Todd Winkler.  

Albert Schweitzer said, “When man learns to respect even the smallest being of creation, nobody has to teach him to love his fellow man.”

Conducted by Robin Fountain, the Vanderbilt University Orchestra will also perform Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5, immediately following “Love Song to the Sun.”

Tickets and more information here.

5. Drench yourself in Billy Collins’ latest poetry collection – with Collins himself!

Parnassus Books is thrilled to present a Salon@615 Special Edition event with Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States, and author of The Rain in Portugal.

This is a ticketed event. Tickets are limited, cost $18.50, and can be purchased online by clicking here. Every ticket includes a copy of The Rain in Portugal. There will be a signing line after the reading.

More About The Rain in Portugal:

The Rain in Portugal – a title that admits he’s not much of a rhymer – sheds Collins’s ironic light on such subjects as travel and art, cats and dogs, loneliness and love, beauty and death. His tones range from the whimsical – “the dogs of Minneapolis . . . / have no idea they’re in Minneapolis” – to the elegiac in a reaction to the death of Seamus Heaney. A student of the everyday, Collins here contemplates a weather vane, a still life painting, the calendar, and a child lost at a beach. His imaginative fabrications have Shakespeare flying comfortably in first class and Keith Richards supporting the globe on his head. By turns entertaining, engaging, and enlightening, The Rain in Portugal amounts to another chorus of poems from one of the most respected and familiar voices in the world of American poetry.

More About Billy Collins:

Billy Collins is the author of twelve collections of poetry including The Rain in Portugal, Aimless Love, Horoscopes for the Dead, Ballistics, The Trouble with Poetry, Nine Horses, Sailing Alone Around the Room, Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic, Lightning. He was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and New York State Poet from 2004 to 2006. In 2016 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

 

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Need a little more inspiration? Best Song Ever…

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins…

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Copyright for top image here.

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