NEW LITERATURE FROM AUSTRIA MEETS EARLY JAZZ
Public reading with musical sidenotes at the ACFNY with contributions by Patricia Brooks, Gabriele Petricek, Lydia Steinbacher, Erwin Uhrmann as well as trombonist James Hall and guitarist Chuck Jennings marks the conclusion of the 2nd Austrian-American Podium-Dialog. The event will also mark the end of a long weekend featuring New Literature from Europe (http://newlitfromeurope.org/).
Authors will each briefly read (both in English and German) from their respective works. The readings and following discussions will be introduced and moderated by Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger and Gabriele Petricek. The musical program features James Hall, a trombonist and composer from Nebraska based in New York City and Chuck Jennings, guitarist from Virginia.
Austrian authors Patricia Brooks, Gabriele Petricek, Lydia Steinbacher and Erwin Uhrmann have been invited to the US to join the 2nd Austrian-American Podium-Dialog (AAPD). They are members of PODIUM, a literature association founded in 1971, in Neulengbach, Austria.
Under the motto “Passages – Borders”, the 2nd Austrian-American Podium-Dialog takes place at Lafayette College (PA) from November 6th to November 8th. The AAPD is co-headed by Prof. Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger and the Viennese author Gabriele Petricek, and it is organized in collaboration with the Max Kade-Foundation and PODIUM.
The conference is publicly accessible and will take place at the Max Kade-Center, Pardee Hall 433, Lafayette College, Easton, PA. For further information see: maxkade.lafayette.edu/2013/11/19/nov-7-9-2014-second-austrian-american-podium-dialog/
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Patricia Brooks, born in Vienna, writes novels, lyric prose and radio plays. She is initiator and contributor to interdisciplinary performance projects including the idea and concept of Radio rosa – TextMix Lab. Patricia Brooks received numerous prizes (among others the Theodor-Körner-Preis and the Anerkennungspreis des Landes Niederösterreich) and stipends. Following the anthologies Aquadrom und Feuerfahrt. Winterspiel, the novels Kimberly and Garten der Geschwister were published in 2001 and 2006. The radio plays Stella und der Koch (ORF, NDR, WDR, etc.) and Sprich nicht mit Fremden were released in 2010 and 2013. In 2015, the novel Die Grammatik der Zeit was published.
http://patricia-brooks.marp.at
James Hall‘s debut album, Soon We Will Not Be Here, set poems by contemporary New York City poets to original jazz and classical music for a baritone vocalist, trombone, piano, and percussion. In Lattice, he weaves trombone and alto flute into a lush tapestry of post-bop. As a composer, Hall was named a finalist in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Competition and won three ASCAPlus Awards for composition. As a trombonist, he regularly tours and records with Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra and Postmodern Jukebox, and has competed as a finalist in the Antti Rissanen and J.J. Johnson International Jazz Trombone Competitions. James maintains close ties to Germany and Austria, having worked on a vineyard in the Pfalz, performed extensively while living in Vienna, and having an insatiable appetite for gefüllte Buchteln and Trockenbeerenauslese. For two years, James has collaborated with veteran jazz guitarist Chuck Jennings to interpret songs from the early 1900s. A monthly residency at Long Island City bistro Queens and Paupers allowed Hall and Jennings to polish their repertoire of jazz standards, spirituals, and early blues.
Guitarist Chuck Jennings was born and raised in Virginia where he took up the guitar at age 14. Largely self-taught at first, he later attended the University of Richmond where he began two years of formal studies in classical guitar. It was at this time that he was introduced to jazz through the music of John Coltrane and decided to attend Berklee College of Music and pursue a career in jazz. After graduating, he relocated to Los Angeles and became immersed in the jazz scene there. In 2000 he moved to New York in the desire to be in the center of the jazz world. Since that time he has played with some of the leading musicians in New York and toured in Europe. He has worked as an accompanist for jazz legend Sheila Jordan as well as younger players such as Joel Frahm, Donny McCaslin, Sam Newsome and Jon Cowherd. He also plays with and produces several singer-songwriters and has toured with Nashville singer-songwriter Ginny Owens who has won three Dove Awards including the best new artist. His latest CD is a collaboration with vibraphonist Eldad Tarmu called “Leaving St George”
Margarete Lamb-Faffelberger is a professor of German and Director of the Max Kade Center for German Studies. She is also an affiliated faculty in women & gender and film & media studies at Lafayette College in Easton, PA. She serves as editor of Peter Lang’s Austrian Culture Series and was co-editor of the Women and German Yearbook from 2010 until 2014. An affiliate at the Jelinek-Forschungszenturm (Univ. Vienna), she takes part in the research project “TABU: Bruch. Überschreitungen von Künstlerinnen.” Some recent publications are “Heimat” and “Internationale Rezeption: Angloamerikanischer Raum” in the 2013 JELINEK HANDBUCH, “The Experiment is Not Yet Finished”: VALIE EXPORT’s Avant-garde Film and Multimedia Art” in NEW AUSTRIAN FILM (2011), STAGING EXPORT: VALIE ZU EHREN (2010), and ELFRIEDE JELINEK: WRITING WOMAN, NATION, AND IDENTITY (2007). In 2009, she received ACTFL’s national award for excellence in teaching with technology.
Gabriele Petricek was born in Krems. She currently resides in Vienna and co-organizes the Austrian-American Podium-Dialog, Easton, PA. Initially being a correspondent of a Swiss fashion magazine, she now writes prose, poetry and performative texts, preferably working across genre with artists and musicians. She has been a writer in residence in the US, Great Britain and Italy and received prestigious prizes including the Theodor-Körner-Preis, Austrian state and project scholarships, the Anerkennungspreis für Literatur des Landes Niederösterreich 2013 as well as Elias-Canetti scholarships in 2014 and 2015. In 2005, her collection Zimmerfluchten was published, followed by the triptych Von den Himmeln in 2009 and Joyce’s Choice oder: Ein Hund kam in die Küche. in 2011.
www.gabrielepetricek.at
Lydia Steinbacher, born in 1993 and raised in Hollenstein/Ybbs, currently studies and lives in Vienna. Besides, she teaches German as a foreign language. Her first book of poems silex was published in 2014. In her lyric poetry, she often deals with images of nature. Also, her poetry often addresses signs of old age, like loss and restrictions as well as the feeling of inner conflict. Most recently her short story Eine Stadt am Meer and three poems in Gaismair Jahrbuch 2015 were published. The author currently works on her first novel.
http://www.versopolis.com/poet/10/lydia-steinbacher
Erwin Uhrmann was born in 1978 and resides in Vienna. The dystopic novel Ich bin die Zukunft, which was called the discovery of the year by literature blogger Kerstin Pistorius, was his latest publication. Beforehand the novella Glauber Rocha, the novel Der lange Nachkrieg, the volume of poems called Nocturnes and the collection of short stories called Ostseeatem were published. His novels, novellas and lyric texts deal with the escape from everyday life and the breach of civilization with the dominating system.
www.erwinuhrmann.com