Award-Winning American Poet David Mason on Art & Fine Living with Jona

Press Release

September 5, 2008-

Award-Winning American Poet David Mason on Art & Fine Living with Jona

One of America’Äôs most decorated poets, David Mason, will be the guest of producer and host Jona Rapoport, on her weekly radio show, Art & Fine Living with Jona on Radio Shalom in Montreal this September. David Mason has recently completed his first opera libretto, based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’Äôs literary masterpiece The Scarlet Letter, to music by acclaimed American art song and opera composer Lori Laitman. The opera, commissioned by the University of Arkansas, will see its world premiere November 6, 2008 in Conway, Arkansas.

David Mason’Äôs 2007 publication, verse novel Ludlow, was named best poetry book of the year by the Contemporary Poetry Review and the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. Several collections of his poetry, The Country I Remember (Story Line Press, 1996) and The Buried Houses (Story Line Press, 1991), have earned him honours such as the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize and the Poetry Society of America's Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award. He is also a formidable critic, contributing to such journals as The Hudson Review, The Sewanee Review, and The New Criterion. Mason has collected his essays in The Poetry of Life and the Life of Poetry (Story Line Press, 2000), and co-edited the influential anthology Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism (Story Line Press, 1996). His poetry, prose and translations have appeared in such periodicals as The New Yorker, Harper's, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, Poetry, Agenda, Modern Poetry in Translation, The New Criterion, The Yale Review, The Hudson Review, The American Scholar, The Irish Times, and The Southern Review. A former Fulbright Fellow to Greece, David teaches at Colorado College.

The interview can be heard on Art & Fine Living with Jona on CJRS 1650 in Montreal on Sunday, September 14 and again on Wednesday, September 17, 2008. The show can be accessed live stream on the radio's website at www.radio-shalom.ca. All shows are archived shortly on the radio website for downloading and/or listening.


Art & Fine Living with Jona is a veritable showcase of some of the world's renowned and emerging talents in music, theatre, cinema, dance, literature, visual and performing arts. The show has been lauded as a unique platform which supports the arts through insightful interviews, cultural news, coverage of upscale lifestyle trends and presentation of new releases in classical music and jazz. Guests who appeared on Art & Fine Living with Jona include, among many others, the prolific piano virtuoso Lang Lang; Playwright Vittorio Rossi; Singer Sean Lennon; Violinist Gil Shaham; Soprano Natalie Dessay; Film director Mike Newell; Cellist/Conductor Yuli Turovsky; Poet David Mason; Soprano Measha Brueggergosman; Antique Specialist Terry Kovel; Actress Caroline Cave; Jazz Musician Walter Blanding; Choreographer Peter Quanz, Conductor Jacques Lacombe; Composer Lori Laitman; Conductor Yannick Nezet-Seguin; Playwright Daniel Lillford; Bass Denis Sedov; Soprano Suzie Leblanc; Dancer Callie Robinson; Violinist James Ehnes; Tenor Richard Margison; Director Roy Surette; Tenor Marc Hervieux; Composer Ofer Ben-Amots; Cellist Denise Djokic; Dancer/Choreographer Margie Gillis; Conductor Bernard Labadie; Jazz Vocalist Sophie Milman; Artist Boaz Kaizman and Tenor Ben Heppner.



Jona Rapoport also represents the extraordinary talent of American art song and opera composer Lori Laitman.




For more information:
www.jonarapoport.com
www.radio-shalom.ca