Rita House SALON ROUGE // Featuring Paul Brill: The Cost Of Believing

Youthful indiscretions and ill-fated wanderings found Paul Brill journeying as an herbal smokes salesman, street performer, valet, corporate errand boy, traveling musician and a marine biology instructor on dusty western streets. Hopes dashed and races run, he returned home to his native New York seeking firmer ground. He found meaning and sustenance in his work with disadvantaged children in East Harlem, yet after several years again felt the song siren stirring in his heart and reembarked on an illustrative songwriting and recording career.

Experimental forays into music production and orchestration soon led him to land compositional commissions in film, television and theater, where his early efforts drew quick notice and earned him consecutive Emmy Nominations on his first three films. The ensuing years found Brill leaning-in-hard on his compositional work, resulting in further acclaim and his scoring over 100 films, series and plays that would carry him around the world to screen, perform and conduct his compositions.

Recently, during quieter and lonelier times, the songwriting spirit reawakened with fury and fired out Brill’s wildly ambitious new musical breakthrough/breakdown: The Cost of Believing - a theatrical lyric-ballet, song-cycle, fever-dream bound soon for a stage of some making. Written, recorded and produced in a matter of weeks, The Cost of Believing is an examination of physical and emotional isolation, the lengths we travel to find fulfillment, and the revival we confront in the pursuit of the promise of light.

Some of clients and collaborators have included: Netflix, The United Nations Women, ESPN, Notion.io, Simon Sinek, SpaceX, Notion, Warner Brothers Music, The Jim Henson Company, BBC, VICE, MedMen, Disney+, Hypebeast.

Originally built in 1926 as a Prop Design Studio for film and television, this space also spent twenty years as a violin factory before Emmy Award Winning Costume Designer Rita Riggs purchased the building In 1967 and made it her studio where she worked closely with legends such as Alfred Hitchcock to Norman Lear. Rita predated the current interest in shared community office space by offering space for coworking and creative offices starting in the 70s. When Rita passed she passed the building onto Architects and Rita House Founding partners Scott Strumwasser and Tash Rahbar. They along with Event & Community Director Deena Odelle Hyatt, keep her creative spirit alive in this unique, multi-use space.

A salon is a gathering of people held in an inspiring space with entertainment and conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to please or to educate."

The salon was an Italian invention of the 16th century, which flourished in France throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The salon continued to flourish in Italy throughout the 19th century. In 16th-century Italy, some brilliant circles formed in the smaller courts which resembled salons.

Salons were an important place for the exchange of ideas. The word salon first appeared in France in 1664 (from the Italian salone, the large reception hall of Italian mansions; salone is actually the augmentative form of sala, room). Literary gatherings before this were often referred to by using the name of the room in which they occurred, like cabinet, réduit, ruelle, and alcôve. Before the end of the 17th century, these gatherings were frequently held in the bedroom (treated as a more private form of drawing room): a lady, reclining on her bed, would receive close friends who would sit on chairs or stools drawn around.

This 21st Century Salon takes place in the historic Rita House.

Host or Publisher Rita House