Concert: Unavoidable Happenings

The premiere performance of Unavoidable Happenings, a song cycle on the poetry of Anthony Burgess by Canadian composer and pianist Michael Rose.

The work speaks, with some of Burgess’s trademark humour, of scenes of life over which is cast the shadow of entropy. It is an exploration of life’s unavoidable happenings – and inevitable decay.

Pianist Michael is joined by fellow Canadians Betty Allison, soprano, and Richard Cook, clarinetist. Anthony Burgess's Bösendorfer will be used for this performance.

About Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess is best known as a novelist and composer. He took great pride in writing poetry too. He published his first poems as a teenager in college magazine Electron, and went on to pen hundreds of poems throughout his life, from epic poems to music lyrics. His final work was Byrne, a verse novel published two years after his death.

In 2020, Carcanet Publishing released Collected Poems, edited by Jonathan Mann. This was the biggest volume of Burgess’s poetry, and included translations from the Roman poet Belli and the full text of his verse novel Moses.

Doors 2pm | Concert 2.30pm

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Host or Publisher International Anthony Burgess Foundation