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Press Releases
MUSE of FIRE, Acclaimed One-man Drama About the Secrets of Conducting, Tours Midwest Oct 3—Oct 14, 2016
Conducting—it is the most mysterious of the performing arts.
Silently, apparently with baton alone, great conductors are like wizards with magic wands, wielding enormous power and perfect control. They “play” the one hundred musicians of a symphony orchestra with the same ease others handle a single instrument, while the greatest of them can make the experience of listening so profound and personal, they bring whole audiences to tears.
But what is it, exactly, that conductors do? Are they just waving their arms? Not according to music director David Katz. To him, great conducting is magical. To learn that magic, you need a sorcerer, and you must become that sorcerer's apprentice. Only then, says Katz, will audiences not only hear but feel music’s life-giving wonder.
Professional conductor (Detroit Symphony Orchestra), composer, playwright and actor, (now there's a resume you don't see every day!), David Katz conjures both sorcerer and apprentice in MUSE of FIRE, his fascinating, funny, and deeply moving one-man drama about the making of a conductor, touring the Midwest October 3rd to Oct 14, 2016.
Performances: Details on the website: http://www.museoffiretheplay.org/
MONDAY, October 3, 2016 at 7:30pm Malone University, Canton, OH at the invitation of Malone Professors Jesse Ayers and Michael Benson
SATURDAY, October 8, 2016 at 7:30pm Oconomowoc Arts Center, Oconomowoc, WI at the invitation of the Oconomowoc Chamber Orchestra, the Lake Country Orchestra and music director Roberta Carpenter
MONDAY, October 10, 2016 at 8:00pm West T. Hill Community Theater, Danville, KY at the invitation of Centre College and Centre College Music Professor Jaemi Loeb
FRIDAY, October 14, 2016 at 8:00pm Dawson Auditorium, Adrian College, Adrian, MI at the invitation of the Adrian Symphony Orchestra, Adrian College and Adrian College Music Professor Thomas Hodgman
Spring dates are available. If you'd like to share this unusual musical and theatrical event with your audiences, please contact us.
Hailed by the Chicago Sun-Times for its "unique depth and humor…tremendous verve and palpable passion," and by WFMT Fine Arts Radio as "overwhelming…a must see…so well acted, so well written, so well directed..." MUSE of FIRE lifts the veil on the conductor’s secret life. And the life the play reveals is Katz's own: a true story about a grand old European Maestro who will stop at nothing—not ridicule, not even death—to mold a student in the flames of his love for music.
The young man then discovers that great conductors are not born—they must be forged…in fire.
MUSE of FIRE vividly conveys the power of music to transform the heart and touch the soul, while making the experience delightfully entertaining. "Great stories, well told…it's like watching a close football game with the coach screaming from the sidelines," is how the Bar Harbor Times recommended it.
An extraordinary theatrical and musical event, MUSE of FIRE will be especially meaningful to music-lovers, who will appreciate the classical pieces by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Schoenberg woven into the play, but "…anyone whose life has been shaped by conflict with a difficult parent or teacher or boss or lover should find Katz's virtuosic performance moving as well as illuminating," wrote the Chicago Reader.
Visit www.museoffiretheplay.org for photos, reviews, synopsis, video clips, background, biographies and more.
Katz has performed MUSE of FIRE not dozens but scores of times, for orchestras, theater companies, schools, churches and universities. The play has been cheered from Chicago to Cincinnati, to Baltimore, New York, Boston and Halifax, (and soon will be seen off-Broadway).
Katz is delighted to bring MUSE back to the Midwest. "Great music speaks across ages and oceans," Katz says. "It is eternal, an aspect of the divine that can touch us to our deepest core. That is the message of MUSE of FIRE."
Because of its emotional intensity, MUSE of FIRE may not be appropriate for children under 13 years of age.
In MUSE of FIRE, audiences first meet The Sorcerer—overwhelming in his fury, uncompromising in his standards, whose brutal comments will make you laugh (and wince.) Then they encounter The Apprentice—innocent and terrified, eager and courageous, whose final triumph will make you cheer (and cry.)
MUSE of FIRE is based on Katz's experiences studying with the legendary (and notorious) Maestro Charles Bruck, perhaps America’s most revered (and most frighteningly funny) teacher of conducting. Bruck ruled over the internationally renowned Pierre Monteux School in Maine for more than a generation.
Charles Bruck was a maestro from the “old school." He intimidated students, insulted them, screamed at them, even hit them—going to any lengths to forge them in the crucible of his passion for the art. Even as his rages became legendary, so, too, his acerbic wit and cutting humor, which could make his charges roar with laughter, even as they cringed. Legendary, too, was his uncompromising belief in the power and importance of music.
Undeniably one of the 20th century’s greatest conducting mentors, Charles Bruck was also one of the most feared, imitated and admired. MUSE of FIRE brings to the stage the raw emotion of this brilliant musician—a man ready to do whatever it takes to make music truly live in the hearts of his pupils.
Although there is only one actor onstage, MUSE of FIRE is actually a two-character tour-de-force, so deftly and swiftly does Katz shift from teacher to student and back again. From the moment the young apprentice first experiences the wrath of the man who would become his sorcerer, until he last visits him on his deathbed, years later, MUSE of FIRE forms several arcs: from hatred to love, failure to triumph, life to death, and beyond.
Along the way, Katz plays a host of other characters, including teachers, conducting students and observers, helping to complete a complex portrait of a commanding, funny and difficult maestro at the height of his strength. “...a searing and unforgettable portrait of the man who shaped a generation of conductors...” wrote the Bangor Daily News of this true story.
“MUSE of FIRE’s message rang true throughout," the Ellsworth American hailed. "Bruck forced aspiring conductors to determine for themselves what they were doing wrong, to let go of their pretension and inhibitions and simply “Feel something.” (Audiences) are likely to leave feeling something themselves."
Experience MUSE of FIRE and you will never listen to music—any music—the same way again. “...if his conducting is as fine as his acting," concluded the Chicago Reader, "he must be superb...”
WEBSITE: MuseofFirethePlay.org MUSE of FIRE on FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/MUSE-of-FIRE-192997479762/timeline/ MUSE of FIRE on TWITTER: https://twitter.com/museoffireplay
Silently, apparently with baton alone, great conductors are like wizards with magic wands, wielding enormous power and perfect control. They “play” the one hundred musicians of a symphony orchestra with the same ease others handle a single instrument, while the greatest of them can make the experience of listening so profound and personal, they bring whole audiences to tears.
But what is it, exactly, that conductors do? Are they just waving their arms? Not according to music director David Katz. To him, great conducting is magical. To learn that magic, you need a sorcerer, and you must become that sorcerer's apprentice. Only then, says Katz, will audiences not only hear but feel music’s life-giving wonder.
Professional conductor (Detroit Symphony Orchestra), composer, playwright and actor, (now there's a resume you don't see every day!), David Katz conjures both sorcerer and apprentice in MUSE of FIRE, his fascinating, funny, and deeply moving one-man drama about the making of a conductor, touring the Midwest October 3rd to Oct 14, 2016.
Performances: Details on the website: http://www.museoffiretheplay.org/
MONDAY, October 3, 2016 at 7:30pm Malone University, Canton, OH at the invitation of Malone Professors Jesse Ayers and Michael Benson
SATURDAY, October 8, 2016 at 7:30pm Oconomowoc Arts Center, Oconomowoc, WI at the invitation of the Oconomowoc Chamber Orchestra, the Lake Country Orchestra and music director Roberta Carpenter
MONDAY, October 10, 2016 at 8:00pm West T. Hill Community Theater, Danville, KY at the invitation of Centre College and Centre College Music Professor Jaemi Loeb
FRIDAY, October 14, 2016 at 8:00pm Dawson Auditorium, Adrian College, Adrian, MI at the invitation of the Adrian Symphony Orchestra, Adrian College and Adrian College Music Professor Thomas Hodgman
Spring dates are available. If you'd like to share this unusual musical and theatrical event with your audiences, please contact us.
Hailed by the Chicago Sun-Times for its "unique depth and humor…tremendous verve and palpable passion," and by WFMT Fine Arts Radio as "overwhelming…a must see…so well acted, so well written, so well directed..." MUSE of FIRE lifts the veil on the conductor’s secret life. And the life the play reveals is Katz's own: a true story about a grand old European Maestro who will stop at nothing—not ridicule, not even death—to mold a student in the flames of his love for music.
The young man then discovers that great conductors are not born—they must be forged…in fire.
MUSE of FIRE vividly conveys the power of music to transform the heart and touch the soul, while making the experience delightfully entertaining. "Great stories, well told…it's like watching a close football game with the coach screaming from the sidelines," is how the Bar Harbor Times recommended it.
An extraordinary theatrical and musical event, MUSE of FIRE will be especially meaningful to music-lovers, who will appreciate the classical pieces by Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Schoenberg woven into the play, but "…anyone whose life has been shaped by conflict with a difficult parent or teacher or boss or lover should find Katz's virtuosic performance moving as well as illuminating," wrote the Chicago Reader.
Visit www.museoffiretheplay.org for photos, reviews, synopsis, video clips, background, biographies and more.
Katz has performed MUSE of FIRE not dozens but scores of times, for orchestras, theater companies, schools, churches and universities. The play has been cheered from Chicago to Cincinnati, to Baltimore, New York, Boston and Halifax, (and soon will be seen off-Broadway).
Katz is delighted to bring MUSE back to the Midwest. "Great music speaks across ages and oceans," Katz says. "It is eternal, an aspect of the divine that can touch us to our deepest core. That is the message of MUSE of FIRE."
Because of its emotional intensity, MUSE of FIRE may not be appropriate for children under 13 years of age.
In MUSE of FIRE, audiences first meet The Sorcerer—overwhelming in his fury, uncompromising in his standards, whose brutal comments will make you laugh (and wince.) Then they encounter The Apprentice—innocent and terrified, eager and courageous, whose final triumph will make you cheer (and cry.)
MUSE of FIRE is based on Katz's experiences studying with the legendary (and notorious) Maestro Charles Bruck, perhaps America’s most revered (and most frighteningly funny) teacher of conducting. Bruck ruled over the internationally renowned Pierre Monteux School in Maine for more than a generation.
Charles Bruck was a maestro from the “old school." He intimidated students, insulted them, screamed at them, even hit them—going to any lengths to forge them in the crucible of his passion for the art. Even as his rages became legendary, so, too, his acerbic wit and cutting humor, which could make his charges roar with laughter, even as they cringed. Legendary, too, was his uncompromising belief in the power and importance of music.
Undeniably one of the 20th century’s greatest conducting mentors, Charles Bruck was also one of the most feared, imitated and admired. MUSE of FIRE brings to the stage the raw emotion of this brilliant musician—a man ready to do whatever it takes to make music truly live in the hearts of his pupils.
Although there is only one actor onstage, MUSE of FIRE is actually a two-character tour-de-force, so deftly and swiftly does Katz shift from teacher to student and back again. From the moment the young apprentice first experiences the wrath of the man who would become his sorcerer, until he last visits him on his deathbed, years later, MUSE of FIRE forms several arcs: from hatred to love, failure to triumph, life to death, and beyond.
Along the way, Katz plays a host of other characters, including teachers, conducting students and observers, helping to complete a complex portrait of a commanding, funny and difficult maestro at the height of his strength. “...a searing and unforgettable portrait of the man who shaped a generation of conductors...” wrote the Bangor Daily News of this true story.
“MUSE of FIRE’s message rang true throughout," the Ellsworth American hailed. "Bruck forced aspiring conductors to determine for themselves what they were doing wrong, to let go of their pretension and inhibitions and simply “Feel something.” (Audiences) are likely to leave feeling something themselves."
Experience MUSE of FIRE and you will never listen to music—any music—the same way again. “...if his conducting is as fine as his acting," concluded the Chicago Reader, "he must be superb...”
WEBSITE: MuseofFirethePlay.org MUSE of FIRE on FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/MUSE-of-FIRE-192997479762/timeline/ MUSE of FIRE on TWITTER: https://twitter.com/museoffireplay
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