Join UNBC English professor and independent recording artist Kevin Hutchings for an afternoon of poetry, song, and story at the Prince George Public Library.
In a free multi-media presentation, Kevin will perform original musical renditions of his favourite 19th-century poems by English Romantic poets such as William Blake, John Keats, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron. Emphasizing poetry’s origins in the ancient bardic tradition, the Romantics were fascinated by music’s expressive power. As modern bards, they “sang” passionately of love, community, and nature, sometimes working directly with musicians (as Byron did with the composer Isaac Nathan) and sometimes writing and singing their own musical settings (as Blake did for many of his early poems). Kevin will perform such celebrated Romantic works as Keats’s “La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad,” Byron’s “She Walks in Beauty,” and selections from Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads. He will spice these performances by showing contemporary visual artworks and telling stories about the lives and literary legacies of the great Romantic poets.
Kevin’s albums, including Songs of William Blake and John Buchan’s Poetry in Song are available on Spotify, Apple/iTunes, and other popular online music sites.
SONGS OF WILLIAM BLAKE AND THE ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETS
Adults | Free drop in
Saturday, Nov 16
3:00 - 4:00pm
Bob Harkins Branch, downtown
