Why did I do this? Because I like the crosscurrents of music and words, and the way the direction of the concert unexpectedly turns. Knowing nothing about what they are hearing except the sounds themselves, their assignment was to write a response to what they heard. I sent both Wayne and Miriam “unmarked music” by living composers. But then the the tables will turn, and the authors themselves will have to respond to music they hear. We’ll have music respond to words, by playing jazz and Rachmaninov piano music the authors will briefly read from their novels I’ll interview the authors. The solution I came up with was to turn the tables halfway through each interview. I thought it was essential to feature this music in the program, because it’s the soundtrack for the novels, but there was more to do. One novel features jazz, but we’re not a jazz orchestra the other features piano music, and we are not a piano. Once the books were chosen, I realized that there was a challenge with creating the program itself. Her book is about a concert pianist who is plagued by depression and thoughts of suicide, and her family members who are trying to pull her back into life. Next was Miriam Toews, and her novel All My Puny Sorrows. Its soundtrack is jazz of the dance-club variety. It’s about racial identity, “passing,” and family dynamics. They helped find the authors (both Canadian), who had written novels with a “musical atmosphere.” They selected Wayne Grady, and his novel Emancipation Day. I have no idea why I hadn’t asked Words Worth books (a fantastic bookstore in Uptown Waterloo) about collaborating before. The writers and music idea is an obvious fit, but it’s taken years to actually make it happen. As many of you know, the premise of Intersections is to combine orchestral music with other disciplines, and that we have done! From food, to neuroscience, to yoga, to quantum physics, the we’ve found a way to broaden the conceptual canvas of orchestral music, and connect it to the world of ideas. It’s called “Writers on Music,” part of our Intersections series. This week in Kitchener-Waterloo we’re performing a concert that I’ve been thinking about for years.