for 8 instruments
composed in1994
movements01. Heartbeat
02. Mazurka 1
03. Memories
04. Mazurka 2
05. Rap
06. Grace
07. Grandma’s Dream
08. Bicinium
09. Central Park Mazurka
10. Vision
11. Largo
durationapprox. 60 min. (film version)
approx. 35 min. (concert version)
dedicated toSharon Greytak in memory of our wonderful time at the
MacDowell Colony in Peterborough N.H. USA, fall 1991
Many thanks to the MacDowell Colony
musiciansEnsemble PHORMINX Darmstadt:
Angelika Bender - flutes
Thomas Löffler - clarinets
Andreas Hepp - piano, percussion
Alexander Fies - percussion
Wolfgang Umber - percussion
Johannes May - violin
Friederike Kremers - viola
Wolfgang Lessing - violoncello
publisherEDITION MEIJERINGprogram notes, information about the filmThe Love Lesson
(U.S.) 1995 87 min. Color, 35mm 1:85
Writer/Producer/Director .......................................... Sharon Greytak
Executive Producer ............................................. Nancy Oppenheim
Director of Photography ..................................................Susan Starr
Production Design..................................................Catherine Pierson
Music ..........................................................................Cord Meijering
Editor ...................................................................... Sabine Hoffmann
First Assistant Director ..................................................Julian Petrillo
Cast
Christopher ..................................................................Stephen Delot
Camille, Christpoher's biological mother ......................Teresa Vicario
Grace, Christopher's adoptive mother ......................... Ruth Hackett
Lisa ................................................................................Tara V. Milutis
Grandmother .....................................................................Eve Annsol
Jack ...................................................................................John Reidy
The Poets and Writers:
Marie Howe
Paul Muldoon
Bruce Murphy
Nadja Tesich
Supporting Organizations
New York State Foundation For The Arts
The American Film Institute Independent Filmmakers Program
Annette Kade Collaborative Works Program of Arts International
Art Matters, Inc.
The Jerome Foundation
The MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, New Hampshire
New York State Councii On The Arts
Contact:
Sharon Greytak, 85 Eighth Ave. fr2K New York , NY 10011 • Phone (212) 243-1228
The new feature from the director of Hearing Voices and Weirded Out And Blown Away is an unconventional and lyrical story of three New York City neighbors whose lives are closely entwined.
Seventeen years ago Camille, a gallery owner, and Grace, a civil servant, made a verbal adoption agreement: Grace would raise Camille's son Christopher—with the provision that all three live in dose proximity, and that the existence of the arrangement be kept from the child forever. This triangle changes drastically when Christopher, now a heterosexual teenager, becomes HIV-positive through sex and drugs and is thrown into maturity much too early.
Camille lives her life in the New York art worid, and poets and writers regularly gather at her apartment to read their work. The poets' voices echoing across the common courtyard to Chris become the continuous physical bridge between their lives. Via courtyard Windows and the resonance of sound, a mystical link forms and Camille Steps into a role in his life that she never really wanted nor ever imagined.
About the making of The Love Lesson, the director says:
A lot of things in this film play against populär notions—about relationships, about moral behavior, about personal choices, and narrative style. But my own experience has been closer to stories and subjects like this one, and so I always seem to have a slightly different point of view.
I've always admired people who have the strength, determination and clarity to do things their own way. The way the two women make their own ruies-and the idea of a young person with AIDS. someone who doesn't have a support System. What if someone who is just carving out their sexual identity, when it's totally natural to be fearless, is faced with this—how do they deal with it?
There's this tendency to put a light, positive spin on things in order to go on with life. But when you have to deal with the nitty gritty of working things out that wears thin pretty fast. You have to develop some other means of working things through—and there are no modeis presented in the culture. To me it feels natural and necessary to see these ideas on screen... People often identify very strongly with my movies. Inevitably at screenings someone will teil me that the film expressed something they have feit or experienced in their lives.
