UNM Poets, Musician to Perform at Unusual ‘Church’

The Church of Beethoven’s August line-up fea­tures three UNM poets: Depart­ment of Eng­lish Lan­guage and Lit­er­a­ture Fac­ulty Amy Beeder, Mas­ter of Fine Arts stu­dent in cre­ative writ­ing Richard Var­gas and Eng­lish stu­dent Jes­sica Lopez. The Church of Beethoven offers con­certs with music, poetry, visual art and refresh­ments on Sun­days at 10:30 a.m. in the Kos­mos per­for­mance space at the Fac­tory on 5th, 1715 Fifth St. NW.

Poets Amy Beeder and Stefi Weisburd

Beeder reads on Sun­day, Aug. 1, with Stefi Weis­burd. Beeder is the author of “Burn the Field.” Her poems have appeared or are forth­com­ing in “Poetry,” “Ploughshares,” “The Kenyon Review,” “The Nation” and other jour­nals. She teaches poetry at UNM.

Var­gas reads on Sun­day, Aug. 8, with Rich Boucher. Var­gas is the author of “McLife” and “Amer­i­can Jesus.” He launched a new poetry mag­a­zine, The Mas Tequila Review.

Lopez reads Sun­day, Aug. 29, with Zachary Kluck­man. Lopez teaches poetry, cre­ative writ­ing and New Mex­ico his­tory at Robert F. Kennedy Char­ter High School. She was a mem­ber of the 2006 and 2007 Albu­querque slam teams and the 2008 col­lege national cham­pion UNM Lobo Slam team. She is a mem­ber of writ­ing col­lec­tive and per­for­mance troupe Mes­tizo Mouth.

In addi­tion, Depart­ment of Music Grad­u­ate Assis­tant Roberta Aruda per­forms the “Albrechts­berger Con­certino for Jew’s Harp in E flat” on Sun­day, Aug. 22, with Lisa Kerr and the New Mex­ico Sym­phony Orchestra’s Ken Dean, Ikuko Kanda and Dana Wino­grad. This piece was com­posed in the 18th cen­tury to con­nect sophis­ti­cated music of the time with folk music.

Sug­gested admis­sion prices are $15 for adults, $10 for full-time stu­dents with ID or $5 for chil­dren under 12.