Pines' Last Poems Premiere in UK - Lontano American Music Festival

The Tin Angel Opera, written to a libretto by Paul Pines and based on his widely acclaimed novel of the same name, with music by award-winning composer Daniel Asia, is set in the edgy world of a NYC downtown Bowery jazz club, where a unique cast of characters play out their dramatic story as a call for redemption.

The inspiration behind the story is The Tin Palace, the real-life New York City jazz mecca of the 70s, founded by Paul Pines in 1973.

The Divine Madness Oratorio, composed by Daniel Asia and based on the eponymous poetry book by Paul Pines, is a testament to madness as a force that drives people to create. Such individuals lived on the razor’s edge and pushed the boundaries of their minds, often self-destructing into the abyss of history. As an intense neoclassical oratorio, Divine Madness demonstrates the chaos that gives birth to human innovation and creativity. Pines’ poems express this madness through the figures around whom they are woven, including the great American prophet of democracy Thomas Paine, as well as Van Gogh, Einstein, Heisenberg, John Winthrop, Leonard Bernstein, Telemachus, and many others.

Mirrors of the Cosmos is an extraordinary project—a concerto to be composed by yours truly for shakuhachi and orchestra, featuring Shawn Tairyu Head, a grand master shakuhachi performer and educator, as the soloist.

It represents a rare and historic artistic collaboration between East and West. A concerto for shakuhachi and orchestra is an uncommon yet powerful combination, and we believe Mirrors of the Cosmos has the potential to become a groundbreaking addition to the orchestral repertoire.