RECENT EVENTS

7/12/14: Grand Opening of the Robert Fagan Art Library
With Readings by Geoffrey O'Brien, Hiroaki Sato, and Lynne Sharon Schwartz, and a performance by Jacob Kirkegaard & Katinka Fogh Vindelev

The Robert Fagan Art Library was generously donated by Lenore Parker. The collection features over 1,000 titles, covering myriad topics, with many rare books. The library is appointed with the photographs and ephemera of Kurt and Arlette Seligmann. 

The Robert Fagan Art Library is a reference library, open 10:00am-3:00pm Monday-Friday and evenings and weekends by appointment. To arrange an appointment call 845.469.9459 or email oebaldwin@gmail.com. 

7/9/14: Concert with Mandolin Orange and Twain

The first of our outdoor concerts, with more to come! 

6/20/14: TASTER: An Evening of Art, Dance, Fire & Music, 7pmWorkshop 1-3pm, 
The Seligmann Center and the Warwick Summer Arts Festival partnered for an early celebration of the summer solstice, featuring dance, music, pop-up exhibitions, fire, and other happenings. Proceeds for programming for the Warwick Summer Arts Festival, and new lighting in the Seligmann Center’s two new galleries.          

Hannah Maxwell Photography

6/13/14    The Fourth Surreal Cabaret

The Fourth Surreal Cabaret featured performance art, multi-media, and other avant-garde techniques. The program opened with a benediction from the Surrealist chaplain, the Lama Swine Toil. Acts included a rant by Anne Hanson, the Council of (Poetic) Experimentation doing “Genet Discordia,” William Seaton’s “Party,” Susanna Rich performing a piece from her musical, Shakespeare’s *itches: the Musical, and music by the experimental ensemble, ArtCrime.

The Cabarets provide a rare opportunity for Hudson Valley residents to see exciting new work by area artists using cutting edge practices. “We pay tribute to Surrealist Kurt Seligmann in a way I suspect he would have approved – by showcasing new vision,” says producer William Seaton. The event is free and open to the public. 

6/8/14  Art & Jazz Collaborative: Lisa Strazza & the Hudson Valley Jazz Players

The Seligmann Center presented the second a series of Art & Jazz Improv organized by Hudson Valley Jazz Festival Director, Steve Rubin. The Hudson Valley Jazz Players will improvise while visual artist Lisa Strazza paints. Witness how they respond to and inspire each other. With Michael D'Agostino, Joe Vincent Tranchina, Steve Rubin, Dave Smith, Bill McCrossen, Rick Savage and John Castleman. $10 suggested donation.

6/7/14  "Slapped with Lightning: Punctuation and Poetry," 
Writing Workshop with Susanna Rich & a Reading by Morton Rich

Northeast College of Poetry presents “Slapped with Lightning: Punctuation and Poetry,” a writing workshop with Susanna Rich.  Though punctuation may seem a routine matter, in poetry all elements are significant in the construction of the whole, and punctuation may be a critical clue to reading aloud and to meaning.  Rich’s title suggests the potential for drama and excitement she finds in the subject.

Susanna Rich is a 2009 Mid-America Emmy Nominee, author of two Finishing Line Press poetry collections, a Pushcart Prize nominee, the winner of the 20th Century America and 21st Century America Poetry contests of Sensations Magazine and the recipient of the first joint Fulbright Collegium Budapest Fellowship in Creative Writing. Rich is Professor of English and Recipient of the Presidential Excellence Award for Distinguished Teaching at Kean University in New Jersey. The event is free and open to the public.

NORTHEAST COLLEGE OF POETRY PRESENTS

A LINE THAT DANCES

A WORKSHOP ON THE USE OF CADENCED FREE VERSE

WITH WILLIAM SEATON

SATURDAY, JULY 5th 1:00PM

IN SELIGMANN'S STUDIO

23 WHITE OAK DRIVE, SUGAR LOAF, NY 10981

FREE AND OPEN TO ALL

    Often free verse and rhythmic poetry are considered polar opposites, but in fact virtually all good writing occupies a space somewhere between.  Seaton will present examples of effective but irregular rhythmic patterns and of significant variation in more formally predictable meters.  Participants will experiment with consciously manipulating poetic beats.   

     Seaton is the author of Spoor of Desire: Selected Poems.  Producer of Poetry on the Loose, the College of Poetry Workshop series, and periodic Surreal Cabarets, he also maintains a blog at williamseaton.blogspot.com.

     The next workshop on August 2 titled “Capturing the Muse: A workshop in Radical Imagination” will be led by Steve Hirsch.

POETRY ON THE LOOSE PRESENTS

A READING BY GINA R. EVERS

SATURDAY, JULY 5TH 3:30PM

IN SELIGMANN'S STUDIO

23 WHITE OAK DRIVE, SUGAR LOAF, NY 10981

FREE AND OPEN TO ALL

     Evers is a poet, nonfiction writer, and teacher of writing. Her poetry has appeared in journals, magazines, and anthologies such as Chronogram, The Comstock Review, Quarterly West, and Copper Nickel, among others. She is one of 12 poets featured in Lady Business: A Celebration of Lesbian Poetry, which was included on the American Library Association’s 2013 list of recommended LGBT reading. The Lambda Literary Foundation named Evers one of the Emerging LGBT Voices of 2010, and she earned her MFA in Creative Writing from American University in 2011. Her book-length manuscript, The Maps Inside, which explores the internal- and external boundaries of human identity, has been a semifinalist in contests sponsored by Tupelo Press, the Philip Levine Prize, and Crab 
Orchard Review. Evers is currently at work on two new projects: a series of poems exploring the spirituality of yoga and a memoir on how planning her same-sex wedding made her believe in marriage.

     Evers relocated to the Hudson Valley in February 2014 where she now directs the on-campus Writing Center at Mount Saint Mary College.  She will also be teaching a poetry workshop in this summer's L.I.F.E. program at the college. More information about Evers and her work can be found at www.ginaevers.com.
          Next month Poetry on the Loose will feature New York City poets Michael Graves and Robert Viscusi.

                                                   

The Orange County Citizens Foundation presents the grand opening of the Robert Fagan Art Library at the Seligmann Center. Housed in the Seligmanns’ former home, the Robert Fagan Art Library is the only public fine art library in Orange County, featuring an expansive collection of over a thousand books.

The event will include a dedication of the library, poetry readings by three of Robert’s friends and colleagues, Geoffrey O'Brien, Hiroaki Sato, and Lynne Sharon Schwartz, a musical performance by Danish artists Jacob Kirkegaard and Katinka Fogh Vindelev, and a potluck dinner. The event is free and all are welcome.

ROBERT FAGAN
Robert Fagan was a writer, poet, and independent scholar in literature and art history. His poetry and writings were published widely in literary journals including Partisan Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Witness, The Quarterly, Frank and Stand. Four volumes of his work have been published by Red Moon Press: Stepping Out, a collection of poetry, two collections of stories Peaceable Kingdoms and Other Fictions and Lost Cities and Found Objects and Pieces, a collection of poetry, fiction, and criticism.
Robert was an active member of an informal group of poets and writers, who met weekly for more than twenty years to read and discuss each other’s writings. His commitment to art and poetry led him to collaborate with other writers, notably Carol Emswiller and Hiroake Sato. As an independent scholar of art history, Robert’s encyclopedic knowledge and boundless interests encompassed all of world art from prehistoric sculpture to works by contemporary artists. This wide interest is reflected in the extensive art library his family has donated to the Seligmann Center.

READING
Geoffrey O’Brien, Hiroaki Sato, and Lynne Sharon Schwartz will read selections of their own work as well as works by Robert Fagan.

GEOFFREY O’BRIEN is the author of sixteen books including six collections of poetry (most recently Early Autumn) and prose books including Stolen Glimpses, Captive Shadows: Writing on Film 2002-2012; The Fall of the House of Walworth; Sonata for Jukebox; The Browser's Ecstasy; The Phantom Empire; and Dream Time: Chapters from the Sixties.
He contributes regularly to The New York Review of Books and is editor-in-chief of The Library of America.

H I R O A K I  S A T O is a leading translator of Japanese poetry into English. In 1982, Sato and Burton Watson won the1982 PEN American Center Translation Prize for From the Country of Eight
Islands: Anthology of Japanese Poetry and the 1999 Japan-United States Friendship Commission Literary Translation Prize for Breeze Through Bamboo: Kanshi of Ema Saikō. His more recent books include Miyazawa Kenji: Selections Nishiwaki, Junzaburō: Poems, and Japanese Women Poets: An Anthology. Sato was president of the Haiku Society of America, from 1979 to 1981. A senior research fellow at JETRO New York until June 2013, Hiroaki has written a monthly column, “The View from New York,” for The Japan Times since 2000.

LYNNE SHARON SCHWARTZ is the author of 23 books, including novels, short story collections, non-fiction, poetry, and translations from Italian.. Her first novel, Rough Strife, was
nominated for a National Book Award and the PEN/Hemingway First Novel Award. Her other novels include The Writing on the Wall; In the Family Way: An Urban Comedy; Disturbances in the Field; and Leaving Brooklyn, which was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her most recent book is a collection of essays, This Is Where We Came In, published in March. She is also the author of the memoir, Ruined by Reading, and two poetry collections, In Solitary and See You in the Dark. In 2010 she edited an anthology of essays and interviews called The Emergence of Memory: Conversations with W. G Sebald. She has received grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Foundation for the Arts, and has taught writing and literature here and abroad, and is currently on the faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars. 

PERFORMANCE:
The sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard and classical singer Katinka Fogh Vindelev are joining forces to compose and perform Tone Poem for Richard Strauss, an interpretation of composer Richard Strauss' final completed works, "Vier Letzte Lieder" (Four Last Songs) from 1948. By extracting and working with minute fragments and phrases, they tease out what they see as the essence of these songs written so close to the composer’s death.

JACOB KIRKEGAARD is an artist and composer working in carefully selected environments to generate recordings that are used in compositions or combined with video imagery in visual,
spatial installations. His works reveal unheard sonic phenomena and present listening as a means of experiencing the world. Kirkegaard has recorded sonic environments as different as subterranean geyser vibrations, empty rooms in Chernobyl, Arctic calving glaciers and tones generated by the human inner ear itself. Currently based in New York, Kirkegaard has presented his works at galleries, museums and concert spaces throughout the world, including MoMA in New York, Louisiana in Denmark, KW in Berlin, The Menil Collection & the Rothko Chapel in Houston and at the Aichi Triennale in Nagoya, Japan.

KATINKA FOGH VINDELEV is a modern classical singer who works in the fields of contemporary classical music and experimental sound art. In 2012 she formed the innovative, classical ensemble "We like We" in Copenhagen. Their debut album is to be released on “The Being Music” label in the fall of 2014. Now based in Berlin, Katinka works as a soloist with various bands and classical ensembles, touring around the world. She is currently developing a solo performance called i am now: that mixes her classical voice with vintage synthesizers. In July 2015 Katinka will make her opera debut in a new and innovative production, commissioned by the Copenhagen Opera Festival. 

23 White Oak Drive, Chester, NY 10918

seligmanncenter@gmail.com

845.469.9459