Debussy, Bach and Vivier: Music in Gloria Murray's Life

Pianist Gloria Murray, the heroine of my novel River Music, specializes at the beginning of her career in Debussy with a bit of Bach thrown in.   But as she develops musically, she branches out until in her late 50s she encounters the music of Quebec composer Claude Vivier.

By chance she hears his  Lonely Child, a work for voices and orchestra, in a broadcast of  its first performance in Vancouver.  The work speaks to her because she, too, was a lonely child.  Then the story of this tortured man becomes tangled with her own....

To find out more, all are invited to the launch party from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday May 27 at the Librairie Drawn and Quarterly, 211 Bernard West, Montreal.