The Beauty of the Husband

Programme change: The artistic content of the concert has changed from what was previously announced. Instead of Anne Carson’s The Beauty of the Husband, the performance will now be built around her text Oh Betty. The concert title, performers, date, time and venue remain unchanged.

Poetry and music come together in a concert experience centred on the Canadian writer Anne Carson’s poetic text Oh Betty. Gambist, singer and composer Mikko Perkola joins internationally acclaimed Icelandic composers and musicians Kjartan Sveinsson (Sigur Rós) and María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir in a performance that brings together diverse musical backgrounds and modes of expression.

Anne Carson is a poet, essayist, classicist and translator whose work moves freely between poetry, philosophy, mythology and visual art. Oh Betty explores where beauty comes into being – in the object observed, in the observer, or in the desire to see. The text was inspired by visual artist Betty Goodwin‘s drawing Seated Figure with Red Angle (1988).

The performance features a recording of Anne Carson reading the text in her own voice. Her narration alternates with music performed by Perkola, Sveinsson and Sigfúsdóttir. Electric violin, piano and electric viola da gamba create a slowly evolving soundscape in which the music does more than accompany the text: it responds to it and carries its ideas forward.

The concert takes place in the Bonfire Hall of Åbo Akademi University’s new Astra building. The intimate venue brings the audience close to the performers and is ideally suited to the spoken word as well as the music’s finest nuances. The performance offers a rare opportunity to hear Anne Carson’s own voice as part of a live concert by three musicians.