Aurora Orchestra & Poet in the City: Memento

Technology has rapidly transformed the way we store memory and our very own relationship to this critical aspect of being human. What can music and poetry tell us about this dramatic shift in our everyday lives?

In this cross-disciplinary event, Aurora Orchestra and Poet in the City uncover the story of a groundbreaking new technology that will enable us to remember more than ever before. Through the world premieres of electrically-charged new music and poetry, they explore the question: what happens when matter, music, and language are placed under pressure?

Inspired by this question, composer Martin Suckling and poet Francis Leviston have created new works that draw on the memory of two great artistic forbearers, Franz Schubert and Emily Dickinson.

Suckling explores the idea of music under pressure by echoing, distorting, and crystallising fragments of Schubert’s sublime String Quintet. Leviston references the voltage of Dickinson’s densely packed poems and wonders how Dickinson might have responded to this advance in technology. The event also includes a performance of Schubert’s String Quintet, readings of Dickinson’s works, and reflections from physicist Stuart Parkin, one of the pioneers spearheading this new technology.