The complex and controversial Gertrude Stein, born 150 years ago, was one of the most influential writers of her generation on modernist art, and several generations of composers to the present day. The program is a staged concert including the epic Songs of Wars I have seen by arguably one of the most innovative music theatre composers of the last 20 years, Germany’s Heiner Goebbels. Goebbels’ work includes a choice of 26 texts from Stein’s book written during the Second World War in France, all narrated by female members of the ensemble. The concert will also include B.C. composer Peter Hatch’s powerful Reflections on the Atomic Bomb which includes observations of Gertrude Stein published in the ‘Previously uncollected writings of Gertrude Stein’.

“For Heiner Goebbels confronting the painful legacy he evokes in both the Sampler Suite and in Songs of Wars I have seen has an added resonance. Although he was born in the 1950s, a decade after the horrors of the Second World War played out—he even confesses, “My mother complained when I told her my piece is called Wars I Have Seen; she said, ‘But you haven’t seen  it’”—he was fated to have the same last name as one of the most notorious leaders of the Nazi regime, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. “I was asked every day of my life until now if I  have a relationship with Joseph Goebbels,” the composer admits. ”

Read this interview where composer Heiner Goebbels shares his thoughts on the creation of this remarkable work.

Program order:

Reflections on the Atomic Bomb (1989/2002) by Peter Hatch
Narrator and Ensemble
Text: Reflection on the Atomic Bomb by Gertrude Stein (1946)

Songs of Wars I have seen (2002/2007) by Heiner Goebbels
Staged Concert with Words by Gertrude Stein

We are also pleased to announce a panel discussion co-hosted with SFU—a wonderful opportunity to explore Stein’s life and work, and the many questions that continue to vex those who try to understand her better. For more information, click here.