“Presidential Suite” — Jazz at Lincoln Center Concert Series at Harrison Public Library

The Harrison Public Library has partnered with world-renowned Jazz at Lincoln Center to feature special viewings of taped live performances from New York City. A new performance will be shown at the library each month. Jazz Ambassador Takeshi Asai, Jazz Pianist, Composer and Producer, will provide a brief description about the music being performed before each concert.

Speech is a form of art: an expression of human creativity that is appreciated for it’s beauty or emotional resonance. The great minds of antiquity like Aristotle believed that rhetoric – the crafting of arguments in public speech – should be studied closely and “everyone will at once agree that such an inquiry is the function of an art.” He ardently believed the believed that rhetoric was worth learning because it could persuade and bring progress.

No matter the era, great political speeches stand the test of time. Like most masterful pieces of art, these enduring orations stay with us, convince, or eve challenge us. It’s the genius of Ted Nash to realize that a stirring speech also has inherent musical qualities: lyrics, cadence, rhythm, and melody. He revisited the significant speeches of his own life and found in them not just profound meanings but inchoate music. This set him on a course to create a far reaching paean to freedom, based on the spoken (and written) words of grand speeches. In “Presidential Suite,” Nash finds an exalted common ground between speech and song, merging two traditions, in order to make a singular work.

Contact: Giovanna Fiorino-Iannace