December 30, 2010 marked the centennial of Paul Bowles, who died in 1999. Conferences and celebrations have already happened in Seville, Cologne, Lisbon, Boston and Tangier – where Bowles spent his last decades. A three-day “Celebration of Multi-Artistry” will take place in February at the University of California Santa Cruz.
Best known as an author (“The Sheltering Sky”), Bowles was also a composer during his early career in Manhattan as well as a music critic under Virgil Thomson at the Herald Tribune. This event will give a special emphasis to his music as each day concludes with a concert. Among the talks/papers to be delivered, there’s this enticing topic, “Seriously Queer: Reflections on the Earnest Intimacies of Jane and Paul Bowles” to be given by Margaux Cowden. The keynote talk will by Edmund White and is titled “The Desert and Fatality: Learning from Paul Bowles.”
The organizer of the event is Irene Herman, the musical executor of the Bowles estate, who is on the faculty of UC Santa Cruz. She’s written an essay on Bowles the composer which is available here.
