Saxony and the Kurt Vonnegut Project

I am exploring Saxony (Germany) this week, and may not be able to post again until next Monday. However, as I am staying in Freiberg at the moment, I got a chance to visit a local museum dedicated to the work of Gottfried Silbermann (1683-1753), a renowned maker of pipe organs.

Silbermann is credited with inventing a forerunner of the damper pedal, which was later to become a common feature on pianos. The Silbermann device attempted to provide the musician with a greater tonal variety, although, as it was activated by a hand-operated lever, it required a momentary pause in performance. The museum I visited was in the nearby village of Frauenstein, but the example depicted below is from the Freiberg cathedral.

Tomorrow I will be heading to Leipzig, and from there on to Dresden, where I hope to pick up some inspiration for my Kurt Vonnegut dedication project (Slaughterhouse 5, perhaps Vonnegut´s most famous novel, is set in Dresden). I am planning a tribute album for the author, who died earlier this year – I know it may seem unusual to create a tribute album to a writer of prose, but he was an unusual writer of unusual prose…

I have no idea what sort of music Vonnegut himself would approve of, but I suppose that doesn´t really matter (perhaps each track could be a musical interpretation of a Kilgore Trout novel/short story/pornographic magazine filler). My intention is to gather a selection of Vonnegut-inspired tracks by various Vonnegut-inspired musicians, and to compile a tribute album from said tracks. If you would like to contribute to this project, please drop me a line. The details have yet to be ironed out (in fact, they are still languishing at the bottom of the wash-basket), but I would like to know if there is enough interest in the idea to make it fly…

Contact me at this address: dan(at)podcomplex(dot)com