How do artists think together in the creation of a new work?
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In 2023, the Los Angeles Philharmonic presented the world premiere of Stranger Love, a three-‎act, six-hour opera scored for 28 musicians, 8 singers, and 6 dancers, and directed by Lileana ‎Blain-Cruz. The work was named by The New York Times one of the “best classical music ‎performances of 2023.” Stranger Love emerged from a years-long conversation between its ‎creators, composer Dylan Mattingly and writer Thomas Bartscherer, about music and language, ‎and about life and love. The LA Phil program notes that the piece invites the audience to “dwell ‎within a different temporality, a ‘slow time’ in which attention is both dilated and focused.” In ‎response to a frequently cynical public culture, Stranger Love affirms and celebrates what ‎Octavio Paz calls the “wild bet” that is human love, through which “we catch a glimpse, in this ‎life, of the other life. Not of eternal life, but of pure vitality.”‎
In this conversation, Thomas Bartscherer and Gabriella Lindsay will reflect on thinking together ‎in creative work: through time, through words and music, and through friendship.
This event is part of the “How to Think Together?” series that explores the concept of thinking ‎together in collectives defined by political, ideological, and normative plurality. The series is ‎organized by Jana Bacevic. ‎
Thomas Bartscherer is a Senior Fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and the ‎Humanities, and since 2017 he has been the Peter Sourian Senior Lecturer in the Humanities at ‎Bard College in New York. His performance work has been presented at the Baryshnikov Arts ‎Center, the PROTOTYPE Festival in NYC, and the FIRST TAKE West Coast Opera Workshop. ‎He is co-editor of the forthcoming critical edition of Hannah Arendt’s final work, The Life of ‎the Mind, and of When the People Rule: Popular Sovereignty in Theory and Practice (2023). ‎
Gabriella Lindsay is a visiting assistant professor in French at Bard College. She specializes in ‎intersections between aesthetics, politics and ethics in 20th and 21st century literature, thought ‎and culture in French. Her work has been published in Comparative Literature Studies and ‎Études littéraires africaines. She is the recipient of the OSUN Hannah Arendt Center ‎Humanities Network Humanities for the People Fellowship, the Georges Lurcy Fellowship and ‎numerous research fellowships and travel awards. ‎