LIBRARY NOTES
 
Peter Behrens & Paul Sullivan
A Terrible Beauty
Sunday, May 23, 2010 at 3:00 PM
Irish Arts Center, 553 West 51st Street (10th/11th Avenues)
$25 per person
Special Invitation from Irish Arts Center
A Terrible Beauty is a dramatic work based on Peter Behrens' novel
The Law of Dreams, with music by Grammy Award-winning Irish American composer Paul Sullivan. The novel, on which Mr. Behrens
lectured at the Library in 2007, tells the story of a young man's Homeric passage from innocence to experience during the Irish Famine of 1847.
In A Terrible Beauty, an actor brings to life scenes from the book while a young singer presents emigrant ballads and songs based on its text, woven together with Behrens' historical narration and Sullivan's music. The Ellsworth American (Maine) calls it "an event of uncommon depth and artistry...wrapping the tragedy of the Irish Famine and emigration in stunning music, evocative readings and incomparable songs and slides."
Peter Behrens won the 2006 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction for The Law of Dreams, his first novel.
Paul Sullivan has worked with the Paul Winter Consort, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Boston Pops, as well as Benny Goodman and other jazz masters. His thirteen albums have sold over 300,000 copies worldwide.
Founded in 1972, Irish Arts Center is an arts and cultural center dedicated to projecting a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America for the 21st century, building community with audiences of all backgrounds, and preserving the stories and traditions of Irish culture for generations to come.
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