Poetry in Music Conversation
We’ve partnered with Literary Arts for an entertaining and enlightening conversation with acclaimed composer David Serkin Ludwig, award-winning poet (and Oregon-native) Katie Ford, and moderated by Portland’s own dynamic writer/poet/musician/composer/filmmaker Alicia Jo Rabins.
Join them on Saturday, July 15 to learn more about their long creative partnership, and how they create music that brings together David’s music and Katie’s poetry.
This event will be held in Kaul Auditorium’s Gray Lounge.
Reed College, Kaul Auditorium
Saturday, 7/15 • 12:00 pm PT
Artists
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David Serkin Ludwig
Composer
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David Serkin Ludwig’s first musical memory was singing Beatles songs with his sister; his second was hearing his grandfather perform at Carnegie Hall – and a diverse career collaborating with many of today’s leading musicians, filmmakers, choreographers, and writers was to follow. His choral work “The New Colossus,” opened the private prayer service for President Obama’s second inauguration; in the next year NPR Music named him in the world’s “Top 100 Composers Under Forty.” Ludwig holds positions and residencies with nearly two dozen orchestras and music festivals in the US and abroad. A recipient of numerous awards and honors, he recently received the prestigious 2018 Pew Center for the Arts and Heritage Fellowship.
David lives in Philadelphia with his wife, acclaimed violinist Bella Hristova, and their four beloved cats.
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Katie Ford
Poetry
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Katie Ford is the author of four books of poems: Deposition; Colosseum; Blood Lyrics; and If You Have to Go, all published by Graywolf Press.
Blood Lyrics was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and the Rilke Prize. Colosseum was named among the “Best Books of 2008” by Publishers Weekly and the Virginia Quarterly Review and led to a Lannan Literary Fellowship and the Larry Levis Prize. International invitations to read and lecture include festivals in Tunis, Morocco, Oslo, and Stockholm.
She completed graduate work in theology and poetry at Harvard University, and, following that, received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review, The American Poetry Review, and the Norton Introduction to Literature. She serves as Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside.
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Alicia Jo Rabins
Poetry
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Alicia Jo Rabins is an award-winning writer, musician, performer, and Jewish educator. The New York Times calls her voice “gorgeous” and the San Francisco Chronicle calls her writing “a poetry page-turner, both sexy and humble.” She is the author of two books of poetry, Divinity School (winner of the 2015 APR/Honickman First Book Prize) and Fruit Geode (finalist for the 2018 Jewish Book Award). As a writer/performer, Rabins is the creator and star of the film musical A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff, an independent feature about the intersection of finance and mysticism, which screened at Lincoln Center and which The Atlantic calls “a blessing.” As a musician, she has released three albums (and accompanying feminist Torah study guides) with Girls in Trouble, her indie-folk song cycle about Biblical women; toured across Central America and Kuwait playing bluegrass fiddle as a cultural ambassador for the US State Department; and was the violinist in NYC’s klezmer-rock band, Golem, for eight years. Rabins lives in North Portland with her husband and two children.