Performance Today Invites Audiences to Inspire Poetry with Classical Music

Contact: Brad Robideau
(651) 290-1113
brobideau@americanpublicmedia.org
www.americanpublicmedia.org

Performance Today Invites Audiences to Inspire Poetry with Classical Music

(St. Paul, Minn.) March 3, 2009—American Public Media's^™ Performance Today^® today announced "Notes to Verse," a new project that explores the connection between classical music and poetry, and invites audiences to join the creative process.

The history of composers setting poetry to music runs deep, stretching from Giovanni Palestrina to Sergei Prokofiev. Just as composers draw on poetry for inspiration, music has inspired many poets as well.

In "Notes to Verse," Performance Today has asked Pulitzer Prize-winning poet C.K. Williams to write a new poem inspired by a piece of classical music that listeners will help choose. Beginning Monday, March 2, listeners are invited to visit www.performancetoday.org to make their selection. The online voting ends Friday, March 13 at noon CT.

Performance Today listeners can follow C.K. Williams through the process and hear how he infuses music and words. C.K. Williams will read his poem on the Wednesday, April 1 broadcast of Performance Today. Listeners can take on the task as well. Performance Today invites them to write their own original poem inspired by a piece of classical music and submit it online. To find out more about the project, to see a list of stations and broadcast times, or to listen online via streaming audio, visit www.performancetoday.org.