Amy Tan & Stewart Wallace
In conversation with Roy Eisenhardt
Amy Tan, is one of the most widely read writers of our time. She is the author of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Hundred Secret Sense, and two children's books, The Moon Lady and The Chinese Siamese Cat, which was turned into the PBS series Sagwa. Tan's stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Harper's Bazaar, The New Yorker, as well as numerous anthologies. She has recently collaborated on the libretto for the San Francisco Opera's adaptation of her best-selling novel, The Bonesetter's Daughter, which tells the story of belated intergenerational understanding and is set in both modern-day San Francisco and the Chinese countryside during the tumultuous events surrounding World War II.
Composer Stewart Wallace grew up in Texas, both playing in a rock and roll band, and singing as a cantor in his synagogue. He describes himself as an entirely self-taught composer; he began writing music when he was eight-years old, and wrote his first opera as his thesis for an interdisciplinary honors program at the University of Texas at Austin. He's major breakthrough came with his fifth opera, Harvey Milk, which he wrote with long-time collaborator, librettist Michael Korie. The hugely successful Harvey Milk debuted in Houston before traveling to New York, San Francisco and Germany. In addition to his work with opera, Wallace has composed several film scores and a popular ballet of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.
Roy Eisenhardt practiced law for twelve years in San Francisco and taught at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. He was President of the Oakland Athletics and served as the Executive Director for the California Academy of Sciences for five years. Roy Eisenhardt has been a frequent interviewer for City Arts & Lectures for the past fifteen years.
Write a Review
