Join us for a rehearsed reading of a play by Jessica Duchen about Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, with student actors from the University of Edinburgh, Andy Holian and Diani Teixeira.

This event is part of the Templeton Religion Trust-funded ‘Art and the Sacred’ project based at the University’s School of Divinity investigating spiritual realities and the extent to which these can be mediated by art.

Messiaen's Quartet was composed and performed by him and three fellow captives in a German prisoner-of-war-camp in Silesia in January 1941. A Walk through the End of Time explores this astonishing history and illuminates the music from a creative, philosophical, and spiritual perspective. Jessica will be available for a Q&A session after the reading.

Jessica Duchen is a music critic, author and librettist. She contributes to The Sunday Times, the i and BBC Music Magazine, and her libretti include Roxanna Panufnik’s Silver Birch, shortlisted for an International Opera Award in 2018. Her latest book is the novel Immortal, about Beethoven’s ‘immortal beloved’. Further details can be found at https://www.jessicaduchen.co.uk/

This is sponsored by the Centre for Theology and Public Issues.