Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9: Nine Cheers for Life

It was a stroke of luck to be in the San Francisco Symphony’s audience on Dec. 3 to experience Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. The music acknowledges struggles, yearning, even hints at despair and still it expands into a universe, a glorious affirmation of life. I read another writer call this music an “old warhorse;” I could never think that. There are good reasons why everyone cherishes it – mostly everyone. Sometimes a person gets a Vitamin B shot. Sometimes it takes a Jacuzzi. This symphony is what works every time. It opens the world, lets the listener feel part of it, realize how all life can befriend other lives, and feel the joy propelling us through this phenomenal experience.

Ludwig Van Beethoven, Dec. 16,1770 – March 26, 1827

The concert’s opening selections were both enjoying premier performances at the SF Symphony. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade, Opus 33, written in 1898, was the composer’s first big, prestigious presentation. The Three Choirs Festival invited Edward Elgar to present a short piece for orchestra, but he was too busy. He recommended the young Coleridge-Taylor as “he is far and away the cleverest fellow going amongst the young men.” The Ballade is lyrical and uses interesting back and forth themes and rhythms trading from one section to another. It is a delightful rondo. The listener thinks she has caught the pattern just before there is a shift in the part of the orchestra expressing the energetic song. It is a delightful piece of music. Sadly, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor died, age 32. from a combination of over work and illness. His star had shone brightly for too short a time.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor August 15, 1875- September 1, 1912

Emerge, by Michael Abels, is a fascinating narrative in music of what happened to musicians and what they did about it during the pandemic. It was a bonus to hear the recorded voice of the composer describing the progress from individuals playing music on their own – do you remember videos of musicians playing great music alone in their kitchens and sometimes a whole ensemble all playing in separate places but somehow making the music together? Then, in Emerge, they gather to play together. Blues phrases happen but in a canon instead of musicians playing together. There are scales from the strings and wind instruments and, the composer has written, “When the brass get involved, the strings are finally able to play a melody all together in unison… The scale volley becomes faster until it finally comes together…” The music absolutely does what the composer intends. It is full of a happy kind of energy. Music can be made again, full out. There is a feeling of rejoicing and dancing forward. Mr. Abels has won many awards for his music. The SFS audience wanted to give him another one that night

Michael Abels

Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Opus 125 (1824) is huge from any perspective. It lasts about 65 minutes. It employs the entire orchestra plus four solo vocalists – Gabriella Reyes, soprano, Kelley O’Connor, mezzo-soprano, Issachah Savage, tenor, Reginald Smith, Jr., baritone/bass, and a grand chorus of singers. The SFS Chorus includes 32 professional and more than 120 volunteer singers. Together these artists embody a population, a world. The conductor, Xian Zhang, was a revelation. Her deep knowledge of the music and her dedication to bring out for all of us what Beethoven put in were visible. She encompassed all the music and the musicians in her own being through her energetic, compelling leadership of the orchestra. She is exciting to watch; more than that, she made each sound matter, and, by the way, matter is energy, too.

Conductor Xian Zhang

This symphony is a journey for each of us and all of us together. I really do not like the constant use of “it’s a journey” for everything, but being moved by this music takes us on a journey from dense darkness to brilliant light. Even knowing the light will break through because one has heard this music before, it comes as a surprise. At the very beginning, one cannot say what is happening or what is surrounding us. Then, the enormous sound of the D minor takes our breath away. Immediately we hear different themes pelting us with more blows pounded by the timpani. Once in a quick while, we hear what might be tiny paws running past us while a Beethoven parkland message is played. The Adagio movement flows gracefully around us. It seems to promise a peaceful presence which has not yet arrived. We may hope for it, but there is no promise that it will come. This quiet sound, almost like breathing, is interrupted by the orchestra. Is it a new setting, a new way of being? Or has all we have traveled through: fear, failure, feelings beyond mere sadness changed us? The music presents more variations until the bass singer announces, a capella, Beethoven’s own message; “Oh, Friends, no more of these sounds!/Instead, let’s strike up a song that’s more pleasant,/And more joyful.” We are rewarded with the most uplifting of moments hearing the great sound of the Chorus and Orchestra together. Schiller’s poem praises Nature which gives us “kisses and grapevines,/a friend, faithful unto death./Pleasure was given even to the lowly worm,/And the cherub stands before God.” Human lives and the lives of worms all feel joy. There is frequent carping against this poem, and yet, in it Beethoven found what he was looking for: a statement including all life. No wonder the audience literally jumped and cheered.

photo credits: Michael Abels, by Eric Schwabel; Xian Zhang, by B. Ealovega

ENDURING VIET NAM, by James Wright

This article was published in January, 2018, by the Institute for Historical Studies. I want to share it now in honor of James Wright, former President of Dartmouth and History Professor Emeritus. He passed away only a few weeks ago. In addition to a fine author and historian, he was a great guy. His service to the USA began when he was 17 and joined the Marines and, in his leadership and generous spirit, his service continues.

STILL ENDURING VIET NAM

In 1966, I got on a bus to Oakland at San Francisco Airport. I had never been to SF and don’t think I had previously heard of Oakland. I had taken a Youth Fare ticket to San Francisco to surprise my parents in Oakland. I relied “on the kindness of strangers” to find out how to get there. Three servicemen coming back from Viet Nam were the only others on the bus. They spoke in short phrases that seemed to choke them. I remember one telling about a buddy who had gotten killed and mostly eaten by a tiger. They exchanged abrupt reports about the jungle, bad food, heat, bugs, fear. In 1967, my friend L.E.L was drafted out of his Marshall Scholarship at Oxford. He went to Ft. Campbell, KY. His basic training buddies wanted to write home but needed him to show them where to put a stamp on an envelope. He went to Saigon, reviewed intelligence, and wrote reports for colonels. The colonels did not like the reports and changed them before sending them to the generals. “Sponky,” red-headed, football star two years ahead of me in high school, was the first one I knew who was killed. That’s how I remember him.

In 2017, when I heard that my college friend Susan’s husband had published a book about Viet Nam, I was perplexed. I had, thought I had, a read-no-Viet Nam-books policy, but I wanted to read Enduring Viet Nam, by James Wright, because he is married to my friend. He is also President Emeritus of Dartmouth College, Eleazar Wheelock Professor Emeritus of History. This fine book led me to remember, relive, and learn more about those war years. The names were as real and close to me as people I had lived with growing up. Try this one: Mel Laird. Is he part of your life, too?

Reading the book, I recognized that despite the boycott I thought I had lived by, I had read many Viet Nam books. I read Bernard Fall’s Hell in a Very Small Place in the mid-‘60s and knew the story of Fall’s death; Schell’s The Village of Ben Suc, Herr’s Dispatches. There’s one with newspaper pictures of the war, another with pictures of people tracing names on the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial wall. Jean Lacouture’s biography of Ho Chi Minh, more.

Last year, KQED’s many ads proclaimed VIET NAM was coming soon and “Viet Nam continues.” I thought, “Watching it will not make it end differently.” I saw Ken Burns, the film producer, on TV. He said people would be surprised as he was that Ho Chi Minh had once admired the United States. I live with the knowledge that Ho went to Paris and worked washing dishes in order to try to speak to Woodrow Wilson. He believed in Wilson and was convinced this American leader would help Viet Nam to independence. Ho was not allowed to approach Wilson or the place where the Versailles Treaty was being created. Acts of arrogance and bigotry: future, horrible wars.

A great aspect of Wright’s book is his reliance on interviews with veterans and their families. The soldiers and families are excellent witnesses of the war, of the imprint it left on their lives, and thus of its reshaping of American society.**

Wright’s book is eye opening in many ways, not least because it breaks from a wide spread idea that American soldiers lost the war, that our generation was thrown an opportunity for glory and we all balked. His interview subjects talk about wanting to serve their country to match the service of fathers and uncles. It was impossible for any of them to know what experiences awaited them. Reading this book and looking back, I know that their lives are intertwined with my own. Their history is also mine.

     Enduring Viet Nam reminded me that every individual’s life is bent this way and that by history unfolding near or far. Reading tales of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon saddled with Viet Nam, in some instances welcoming it, in others torn to illness by it, gives me anxiety I may try not to re-visit, but I need to know.

Around 1980, a co-worker found a Marine’s camouflage green jacket. Was it for ammunition? Was its slender padding meant as protection? I hung it from the molding in the front hall of my apartment. It is my memento mori. Despite grand geo-political, economic issues, I opposed the war because I didn’t want those grunts on the bus to die.

Read Enduring Viet Nam: An American Generation and Its War, by James Wright, Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press, New York: 2017.

** The only other book I can think of that relies on such interviews, hundreds of them, is Daring Young Men, by Robert Reeves, Simon & Schuster, 2010. The Berlin Airlift came out of an urgent crisis and lasted July, 1948-May, 1949, very different than the Viet Nam war which trudged through mud and bodies for 16 years.

 

AMAZING NIGHT AT THE SF SYMPHONY: ESA-PEKKA SALONEN, YUJA WANG, SF SYMPHONY, NEW CONCERTO BY MAGNUS LINDBERG…

The San Francisco Symphony presented an amazing evening of music, October 13, 2022. Esa Pekka Salonen, Music Director, still seems new since the pandemic separated him from his audience. Now that he and the SFS are back performing full seasons, the excitement of his leadership and creativity is nearly tangible in Davies Symphony Hall. The program on the 13th was the premiere of Piano Concerto #3 (2022), by Magnus Lindberg performed with the stunning piano soloist, Yuja Wang. The concert opened with Helios Overture, Opus 17 (1903), blissful music by Carl Nielsen. Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra (1943, rev. 1945) was the beautiful and mysterious closing event.

Composer Carl Nielsen

Helios Overture swept the audience away. It is a self-contained, 13 minute, inspired beauty. The SFS performed with conviction and the musicians’ invisible but superb technical prowess. Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen seemed to breathe in concert with the music by the brilliant Danish composer, Carl Nielsen. We arrived in our seats with only moments to spare. This meant that I did not open the program book and learn that there is a subject to the Overture and that it was the sun. At first, I thought it was the ocean. Nielsen had debated the use of programmatic themes in music. Should there be a suggested story or image? He preferred not. And yet, on a trip to Athens with his wife, the heat and sun enveloped his musical imagination. His note on it in a letter to another Danish composer, Thomas Laub, explains his careful steps to program-light. Pun not intended, but it will stay. “My overture describes the movement of the sun through the heavens from morning to evening, but it is only called Helios and no explanation is necessary. What do you think?” What the audience and this writer thought was “Why do I not already know this music?”  Listening, one feels in touch with the universe, caught up in the power and peace of light. Thinking back to Thursday, I think I heard the audience catch its breath and sigh.

Composer Magnus Lindberg

Magnus Lindberg and Esa-Pekka Salonen are both Finnish, were born only 3 days apart, and were close friends while studying composition in the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. Mr. Lindberg established a reputation for fine compositions of great complexity. He explores extreme rhythms played on top of one another. In order to make his music continue to raise the bar for  intensely complex sound and timing, he invented computer programs to go beyond what humans perceive on their own. In some ways, the Piano Concerto #3 approaches classical ways, but they are Lindberg’s translation of classical.

Yuja Wang, Concert Pianist

There is no doubt that his decision to write the Concerto for Yuja Wang to perform was important to the identity of the music. Ms Wang plays the piano with strength. In her performance, it was clear that she was catching all of the directions of the changing and over lapping rhythms. It seemed as though she kept a beat in her head and others in her fast fingers and even in her feet which were dressed in high heel shoes with pom poms on the toes. Yuja Wang presents herself as a devil may care fashionista beauty. She can do that because she is the absolute Ace of pianists. I cannot imagine this Concerto without her. In their onstage conversation after the end of all of the performance, Mr. Lindberg and Ms. Wang offered more descriptions to the audience. They had made edits in the score during their rehearsals. The Piano Concerto #3 could actually be three concerti as each of the three movements are distinct in their sound and structure. It was fascinating, thrilling music performed with the height of musical intelligence. Mr. Lindberg says that the orchestra is his favorite instrument. He certainly uses all of it in every way through unknown dimensions. We need to hear it again!

Composer Bela Bartok, 1927

Bela Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra has a dramatic “back story.” Bartok was in his native Hungary. The fascist governments in Europe had taken over. He wanted to leave but remained to take care of his mother. When she passed away, 1939, he and his family left for America as soon as possible. He arrived in 1940.  In America he was broke, and his health began to go downhill. He had leukemia. His condition and his poverty meant he had to stay in a hospital. Two of his Hungarian friends, Joseph Szigeti, violinist, and Fritz Reiner, conductor, were also in the US. They urged Serge Koussevitzky, Boston Symphony conductor, to help Bartok, and he did. He offered $1000 as a commission for a new work. Bartok would not accept it as charity, but Koussevitzky was smart. He told Bartok that he had to give him $500 before the piece was written and the other half when a new piece was completed. It worked to put Bartok, now terribly weak, back to work. A concerto for an orchestra may seem a contradiction in terms as the usual concerto singles out one instrument playing solos intermittently, with or against the full orchestra. Bartok structured this work so that many instruments of the orchestra would be featured, often  in “couples.” He employed the sounds and individuality of the bassoons, oboes, flutes, trumpets, clarinets to create the architecture of the music. As one would expect, the final composition is completely his own. Bartok apparently was not a fan of Shostakovich, but the Russian composer was much in favor in the US, in part because of the alliance between Russia and the US. In the fourth movement, Interrupted Intermezzo: Allegretto, what Bartok called “brutal band music which is derided, ridiculed by the orchestra. After the band has gone away, the melody resumes its waltz–only a little bit more sadly than before.” This piece became an enormous success, loved by audiences and musicians. It has five movements and his “night music” appears especially in Elegy, the third movement. This Concerto has a sense of mystery running through it, beautiful music but with a touch of off center, ill at ease uncertainty. The journey through all the movements ends with an uplifting, positive feeling of celebration. The audience at the premiere cheered him. According to Bartok, Koussevitzky said it was “‘the best orchestra piece of the last 25 years.'” The music is pure magic.

 

 

 

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH: CELEBRATE!

Beginning in 1996, The Lively Foundation presented annual concerts honoring Women’s History Month. Through many years, Lively’s concerts, HEROIC, BELOVED, were the only concerts honoring Women’s History Month. Artistic Director, Leslie Friedman, noticed that she had choreographed dances about women, about specific, historical figures, and dances set to texts written by women and music composed by women. That work became the first repertory of dances and music. Each year new works would be added often featuring guest artists. Subjects of the dances included Harriet Tubman, with a text by her and a song created about her by Higher Ground, a singing group from Oakland,; the Bronte sisters, using texts from Charlotte Bronte and music by Chopin; Clara Schumann, composer and pianist, with music by her life long friend, Johannes Brahms; Willa Cather, American author, using text from her book, My, Antonia, and premiering music by Jon Deak, music by African-American composer, Undine Smith Moore.

Opera singer Pamela Dillard was one of our first guest artists. She performed classical music songs and others One of her songs was Come Down, Angels, music by Undine Smith Moore. Ms Friedman accompanied Come Down, Angels with a premiere dance.

Pictures from two Heroic, Beloved performances: L-R:Leslie Friedman, Opera singer Marnie Breckinridge, SF Supervisor Reverend Amos Brown; on right side: Pamela Herndon (L) and Sarah Moss (R) dance in the SF Civic Center Garden before their premiere performance of Muse News, music by Bach; choreograhpy by Leslie Friedman.

Peter D.L. Stansky: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Peter Stansky! Frances and Charles Field Professor Emeritus of modern British History, he joined the Stanford University History Department in1968. He served as Chair of the History Department for 7 years. He is the author of many, many books* and internationally honored as the shining light of his field, On Jan. 15, 2022, Stanford honored him with a Symposium on topics of his special interests: William Morris and the Arts & Crafts movement in England; Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group; George Orwell. On Jan. 17 a gathering of students, many now distinguished professors and authors themselves, and friends from across the US and the world thanked him for his friendship, encouragement, enlightenment, and lively verve. Beginning today, Hedgehog Highlights on the livelyblog will feature reviews of his recent books. Thanks to The Institute for Historical Studies and its editor, Maria Sakovich, for permission to re-publish the reviews that appeared in TIHS publication which were written by Leslie Friedman, one of Professor Stansky’s Stanford Ph.D.s.

*Books by Peter Stansky include: Ambitions and Strategies, England since 1867, William Morris, Redesigning  the World, On or About December 1910, Another Book That Never Was, From William Morris to Sergeant Pepper, Sassoon, The First Day of the Blitz, Edward Upward, Twenty Years On. Books by Peter Stansky and William Abrahams: Journey to the Frontier, The Unknown Orwell, Orwell: The Transformation, London’s Burning. Book by Peter Stansky and Fred Leventhal: Leonard Woolf: Bloomsbury Socialist.

Stanford’s Company of Authors: Butterflies Talk!

On April 24, 2021, Leslie Friedman presented a talk about her latest book, The Story of Our Butterflies: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View, on Stanford’s program, Company of Authors.

The speakers for the program were in groups of 3 or 4 speakers. The recording of the talks shows all 3 speakers in Leslie’s group.  Professor Paul Robinson introduces the first speaker; she speaks for about 4 min. 8 seconds. Then Prof. Robinson introduces Leslie. Her talk is about 8 minutes long (each speaker was allowed 10 minutes). After Leslie’s talk, Prof. Robinson makes a few comments praising her talk. Then, he introduces the final speaker, Professor Peter Stansky who talks about his most recent book, Twenty Years On, on modern British History. Prof. Stansky is the founder of Company of Authors.

Here is the link:     https://vimeo.com/546631058

Thank you for your interest!

 

BOOKS FOR THE BEACH! Butterflies & Gardens & 1967

Vacation time returns! Vaccinated and raring to go? Pick up beautiful books from The Lively Foundation to read and enjoy while out in the sun at home or farther afield. Lively books now on offer include The Dancer’s Garden and The Story of Our Butterflies, by Leslie Friedman with photos by Jonathan Clark & Leslie Friedman and OTTAWA: 1967, a collection of photographs by Jonathan Clark of the small town in Northern Illinois where he grew up.

OTTAWA: 1967 is an outstanding collection of photographs taken by Jonathan Clark, internationally renown, award winning photographer. Together these images capture the essence of lives in a time that is gone. The place is still there, but so much has changed. Published by Nazraeli Press, these images will light up your imagination and memory giving you an entry to what could be a foreign country though it is not so far away.

THE DANCER’S GARDEN, by Leslie Friedman with photographs by Jonathan Clark and Leslie Friedman. Comments on this book are full of praise: “I love it. It is a perfect book, in conception and execution. You are a marvelous writer, as I expected, and I am particularly fond of short essays. The scale and layout are just right…”Diana Ketcham, HOUSE & GARDEN, EDITOR (ret.), Books Editor, THE OAKLAND TRIBUNE (ret.) “There is so much delight and poetry and wisdom to be found in the garden and in your book!” S. Abe, CA Academy of Sciences (ret.)

THE STORY OF OUR BUTTERFLIES: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View, “This is a wonderful book and I look forward to sharing it with the rest of the staff here.” Joe Melisi, Center for Biological Diversity, national conservation organization, Tucson, AZ; “Leslie Friedman is an historian, a dancer and choreographer, and now a perceptive writer about nature….in a second splendid work she takes wing into the world of butterflies….One is grateful for this delightful book, so well written and illustrated.” Peter Stansky, Author, Historian, Professor Stanford University.

I WANT THEM! HOW DO I GET THEM?

OTTAWA: 1967 is available from The Lively Foundation. These books are from the artist’s own collection. Cost: $50 plus $6 for mailing. Please mail your check made out to The Lively Foundation to The Lively Foundation, 550 Mountain View Avenue, Mountain View, CA 94041-1941. If you need to use a credit card, please see instructions for PayPal below.

THE DANCER’S GARDEN is available from Bird & Beckett Books & Records, San Francisco, and from The Lively Foundation. Stanford Bookstore currently sold out of it. You can contact the Stanford Bookstore and request it. Cost is $42; $45 which includes mailing.

THE STORY OF OUR BUTTERFLIES: MOURNING CLOAKS IN MOUNTAIN VIEW is available from Bird & Beckett Books & Records, The Lively Foundation, and Stanford Bookstore. Cost is $29.95 plus $5 for mailing.

Bird & Beckett Books & Records, 415/586-3733; 653 Chenery St., SF 94131; eric@birdbeckett.com; Hours: Tues-Sun Noon-6 p.m.

Stanford Bookstore, 650/329-1217; Lasuen Mall/White Plaza, Stanford Univ. CA 94305; stanford@bkstr.com; Hours: Mon-Thurs 11 a.m.-7 p.m.; Fri & Sat 10 a.m.- 7 p.m; Sun 11 a.m.- 6 a.m.

The Lively Foundation, livelyfoundation@sbcglobal.net, 650/969-4110, 550 Mountain View Ave, Mountain View, CA 94041- to buy with a ccard from Lively, please go to the landing page of this blog, scroll down to see the PayPal logo, click on that to pay with ccard. Please add $1.15 to credit card purchases. Thank you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Butterfly Book at Bird & Beckett & Stanford Bookstore

It’s spring! The flowers are blooming and the butterflies are flying. Weather is now warm enough to facilitate their flight. You did not know that butterflies require a particular warmth to be able to fly? Time for you to read THE STORY OF OUR BUTTERFLIES: MOURNING CLOAKS IN MOUNTAIN VIEW, the wonderful new book by Leslie Friedman. It is available at the Bird & Beckett Bookstore in San Francisco, the Stanford University Bookstore at Stanford, and through The Lively Foundation.  The story begins when Jonathan Clark, award winning photographer and husband of Leslie Friedman, sees a butterfly laying eggs on a pussy willow tree. Jonathan and Leslie clip the twig, keep it inside in a container with willow leaves, and then a bigger container, and then in an outdoor butterfly house. They feed the always hungry caterpillars, wait for the chrysalises to open, and then release more than 125 butterflies in nature preserves.

Book cover: front is close up of Mourning Cloak wing and back shows caterpillars on willow leaves. Photos by Jonathan Clark. The book has many full color pictures by Jonathan Clark & Leslie Friedman.

The book also explores the deep cultural ties between butterflies and humans as seen in Chinese legends, Italian operas, Shakespeare, American pop music, collectors, and artists. The amazing Appendices include the story of the caterpillar which is the insect equivalent of the Groundhog for predicting winter, the plight of the Western Monarch Butterfly, the murders of men protecting the Butterfly Biosphere in Mexico, and the destruction of private property and the National Butterfly Refuge, sacrificed for a border wall, in Texas.

Butterflies, though endangered, symbolize HOPE to many individuals and cultures from survivors of genocide to families in San Jose, CA, who supported a mural showing butterflies flying out of books on the wall of an elementary school.

Visit these bookstores! Stanford is open for browsing from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. daily and also takes orders over the web or phone. You can pick up your book anytime or have it shipped. Bird & Beckett is open noon- 6 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, at 653 Chenery St., SF 94131, 415/586-3733. It is located in the wonderful San Francisco Glen Park area.

Please see http://www.livelyfoundation.org/wordpress/?p=3477 for Butterflies Released! and how to buy from The Lively Foundation.

 

Stanford’s Company of Authors: Saturday, 4/24

Lively is proud to announce that Stanford’s Company of Authors program will feature Leslie Friedman to talk about her new book, The Story of Our Butterflies: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View. In 2020, Company of Authors presented Leslie talking about her book, The Dancer’s Garden. She was immediately invited to return.

The program runs from 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time with a short break in the middle. There is no charge. Leslie’s 10 minutes is scheduled 4:55-5:05 p.m. The Stanford Bookstore will offer a 10% discount on all of the books discussed on the program. Speakers all have a relationship to Stanford as professors or alums.

The Story of Our Butterflies: Mourning Cloaks in Mountain View, cover: close up of a Mourning Cloak wing front, caterpillars eating on back

Shown below is the link to registration and the Zoom link for the program and other delights. A flyer displays the schedule for all the presenters and their books.

AUDIENCE ZOOM LINK (to share)

Friends and family can sign up for the event online. They’ll receive all pre- and post-event emails, including when the recordings are available to view.

Event Zoom Link: https://stanford.zoom.us/j/98719373201?pwd=NmE5UWVZN0YrMGE5WW5qWEZFSXVsUT09

Passcode: 813691

Encore! The Exhibitionist Returns

The Lively Foundation is delighted to announce that The Exhibitionist, the one-act play by Lively’s artistic director, Leslie Friedman, will be presented in another online reading. This encore performance will be on Thursday, Feb. 11, 11:15 a.m. Pacific time. Once again Jonathan Clark will read the role of Danny, and Leslie Friedman, will read the role of Lily. This will be the third reading/performance of The Exhibitionist in a week and a half. The first encore presentation was Wednesday evening, Feb. 3. This time the program was only The Exhibitionist. Reactions to the play were so enthusiastic that Leslie’s undergraduate classmates decided to present it so that more of their class and others could see it. To watch The Exhibitionist, please email The Lively Foundation to receive the Zoom link.

JJonathan Clark, better known as a photographer and fine art printer, will read the role of Danny. Leslie Friedman, better known as a dancer/choreographer, will read the role of Lily.