Event

David Katz's MUSE of FIRE

Conductors are not born. They are forged in fury.

MUSE of FIRE, David Katz's acclaimed one-man play about the art of conducting, receives its Boston area premiere Sunday, March 11, 2007 at 8 pm at Temple Shalom, 175 Temple Street, Newton. MUSE of FIRE is performed by the playwright and was directed by Tony Award-winner Charles Nelson Reilly, who created "The Belle of Amherst" expressly for Julie Harris.

"Conducting. It's not at all what you think it is. No--it's not about waving your arm. It is a black art. To learn the magic, you need a Sorcerer, and you must become that Sorcerer's Apprentice."

David Katz's MUSE of FIRE is the story of a modern-day Sorcerer and Apprentice. It dramatizes the years the playwright spent studying with Charles Bruck (1911-1995), the notorious Master Teacher of the Pierre Monteux Conducting School in Hancock, Maine, who ruled godlike over that world-renowned institution for more than a generation.

Bruck was tyrannical, demonic in his fury. He intimidated his students, insulted them, screamed at them, even hit them--going to any lengths to forge them in the flames of his passion for the art. Even as his rages were legendary, so too was his acerbic wit, and his uncompromising belief in the power and importance of great music.

Acclaimed in performances in Maine and Connecticut and soon to be seen in Chicago, off-Broadway and on tour, David Katz's MUSE of FIRE lifts the veil on the conductor's secret life to reveal that conductors are not all born, sometimes they are forged--in fury.

David Katz's performance has been called "brilliant," the play "one of a kind," "a searing and unforgettable portrait of a man who forged a generation of conductors."