Friday, October 12th, 8PM
Marsh Chapel
735 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston
The movie of which Albert was the genesis and remains the heart, soul and star, Apparition of the Eternal Church, will have its Boston premiere this coming Friday, courtesy of the Boston University Messiaen Project (BUMP--an acronym Albert enjoyed) and its international conference "Messiaen the Theologian." After the show, conference organizer Andrew Shenton will perform the Messiaen organ work of the same name, and there will be a round-table discussion and Q&A with Andrew, Boston Globe correspondent David Weininger and me, hosted by BU's Victor Coelho.
When I interviewed Albert for the movie (the first of 115 interviews), I had no idea he'd ever played a note of Messiaen. So it was one of my biggest surprises and the movie's happiest serendipities that he had been the first to perform Messiaen in the National Cathedral back in 1950, when this music was hot off the press.
Albert figures prominently in the trailer: apparitionfilm.com/assets/ApparitionTrailer20070209QTb.mov
This is the schedule for the BUMP conference ("Messiaen the Theologian"):
http://oliviermessiaen.net/bump/conference-2007/program
(The following night, with Messiaen scholar Luke Berryman, I'll be giving the Boston premiere of a newly published Messiaen work for violin and piano, the Fantaisie.)
Here's the link to the movie's official Website: apparitionfilm.com
Here's the poster for the Boston premiere: paulfesta.com/Boston.htm
And here's Albert's bio on the movie site: apparitionfilm.com/cast/fullerbio.htm
