Truth & beauty : readings, music, art

Date

Location

Sponsor

Admission

About the Event

The Urbane Conspirators of The Coffee House Club are partnering with Salmagundi, HIP Lit, and Bach & Bacchanalia to bring you Truth & Beauty, an official Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend event.

Since it’s a part of the festival, it will be open to the public (invite your friends!), with Coffee House and Salmagundi members given free admission.

It will be a truly spectacular evening, featuring: readings from author and philosopher Skye Cleary (How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment, just out from St. Martin’s Essentials), debut novelist John Manuel Arias (Where There Was Fire, forthcoming from Flatiron Books), and poet Nancy Huang; a concert from Audrey Hayes on violin and Miles Walter on piano, who will perform César Franck’s Violin Sonata; a view of Salmagundi’s annual Fall Auctions exhibition; plus themed cocktails and much mingling.

Dinner

Opt to extend the revelry with a three-course, French prix-fixe dinner in the downstairs dining room via a VIP ticket on Eventbrite. See our featured menu. If you’re not joining us for dinner, you’re welcome to stay for drinks in the bar room after the program.

Starter

Endive Salad
with toasted almonds, goat cheese, and herb vinaigrette

or

Wild Mushroom Bisque

Main Course

Morue Meunière
sautéed cod with haricot vert, carrot puree, and white wine butter sauce

or

Boeuf Bourguignon
mushrooms, carrots, braised in a red wine sauce, and pomme puree

Dessert

Gâteau aux fraises et aux amandes
strawberry cake with almond cream

Featuring:

Skye C. Cleary PhD MBA is a philosopher and author of How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment (St Martin’s Press / Ebury 2022), Existentialism and Romantic Love (Palgrave Macmillan 2015) and co-editor of How to Live a Good Life (Vintage 2020). She was a MacDowell Fellow (2021), awarded the 2021 Stanford Calderwood Fellowship, and won a New Philosopher magazine Writers’ Award (2017). Skye teaches at Columbia University and the City University of New York, and previously at ThinkOlio, the New York Public Library, and with incarcerated students.

John Manuel Arias is a queer, Costa Rican-American poet and writer, whose debut novel Where There Was Fire is forthcoming from Flatiron Books (2023). A Canto Mundo fellow & alumnus of the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop, his prose and poetry have been published in PANK, The Rumpus, F(r)iction, Joyland Magazine, and Akashic Books. He has lived in Washington D.C., Brooklyn New York, and in San José, Costa Rica with his grandmother and four ghosts.

Nancy Huang (she/they) grew up in America and China. She is a VONA, Tin House, Watering Hole, and Pink Door fellow. Her debut poetry collection, Favorite Daughter, is out by Write Bloody Publishing. Her poetry, plays, and prose are published by The Offing, Cosmonauts Avenue, poets.org, The Margins, and A24. She has a poetry MFA from NYU. She sleeps in her bathtub in Brooklyn.

American violinist, vocalist and arranger Audrey Hayes is a sought-after concert performer. As a violinist, she has been a featured, onstage soloist in multiple Broadway productions (Chicago, the Musical and A Christmas Carol) and has made guest appearances with the Island Symphony Orchestra, Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra and the New Tide Orquestra. Based in NYC, she has toured with classical ensembles such as Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Shattered Glass, Contemporaneous, and has performed extensively with a variety of artists at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center, Beacon Theatre, Steinway Hall, the Met Gala and the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. In addition to her performing career, she is a highly in-demand studio musician featured on the albums of Vulfpeck, Al Verdine (of the Beach Boys) and hip hop artist, Sir the Baptist, to name a few. Ms. Hayes holds a BA from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in philosophy and a degree in violin performance. Born into an artistic family, Ms. Hayes started playing the violin at the age of four and studied at Manhattan School of Music Pre-College in both violin performance and vocal performance. She plays a 2005 Andrea Castelliani violin.