In November I was on a book reading tour for my graphic novel 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA (Carlsen Publishing House) together with the musician Jörg Walter (my husband :).
The specialthing about it: We developed a program with music in which I read the graphic novel (i.e. act out the dialogues of the characters while the comic panels are shown on screen), to which Jörg parallelly plays improvised music on a concert harmonium (originating from the time in which the story takes place). Before that, he developed leitmotifs for characters and moments in the selected scenes that I read, but what he plays in the moment of the book reading stays truly unplugged and spontaneous! In this fashion, we performed the reading concert, (as we call it) five times at this year’s KIBUM in Oldenburg (thanks to Regina Peters!) – once in the KULTURETAGE, four times in schools in the city and it’s region. Of course, our wonderful harmonium, a historic reed organ, had to be transported for this – that’s why you can see us posing here in front of a transporter :). The final event of our little tour took place in Itzehoe, where we read at a school as part of Ocean Summit’s ‘LeseMeer‘ program.
All of the events were so rewarding and beautiful and we were fully in our element! And we were very impressed by the many enthusiastic listeners, the children – and the consistently very committed and interested teachers and specialists at the schools and performance venues. A big thank you to everyone!
If you are also interested in such a reading, please send me a message – for example via the contact form on this page.
