(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Hudson, N.Y.-based duo Eric Keenaghan and Jeffrey Lependorf will perform East Meets East Meets West, an evening of poetry and music at the CCCA (209 Warren St.) on Saturday, May 3, 2014, at 5pm. The event, in conjunction with the Not Necessarily Black & White exhibit currently on view, features poet Keenaghan and musician Lependorf in their debut performing as a duo. Keenaghan will read from Palace Songs, a cycle of poems inspired by Turkish talismans, while Lependorf performs masterpieces of Zen meditation music on the shakuhachi, a traditional Japanese bamboo flute. A wine and cheese reception will follow.

Poet Eric Keenaghan teaches American Poetry, LGBTI studies and theory, literary theory and political-aesthetic philosophy at SUNY Albany. His Queering Cold War Poetry, an important study on Cuban and American poetry, was published by Ohio State University Press. He is working on a poetry collection (Love Letters to My Husband), a critical book on anarchism and midcentury American poets (Life, Love and War), a nonfiction essay series about poetry and politics (Etudes).

Musician Jeffrey Lependorf is a composer of operas and chamber music as well as a certified master of the shakuhachi (a traditional Japanese bamboo flute) and has helped create a new repertoire of music for this ancient instrument. A recording of his Night Pond for solo shakuhachi was launched into space with the shuttle Atlantis, remaining for a year aboard the Russian space station Mir. Some of his recordings can be found on iTunes and Amazon.com; his Masterpieces of Western Music audio course (of Barnes & Noble’s “Portable Professor” series) can be found on audible.com.
For more information: 518-671-6213 and www.artscolumbia.org.