Monday, June 23, 7:30 PM
Sean Michaels presents Us Conductors
Theremin performance by Rob Schwimmer

Montreal music writer Sean Michaels is a two-time National Magazine Award winner, and his work has appeared in the Guardian, McSweeney’s, Pitchfork, The Believer, and many other publications. His debut novel Us Conductors is a tale of the invention of the world’s strangest instrument, the theremin. A Tin House New Voice and Random House New Face of Fiction for 2014, Us Conductors is a haunting novel inspired by the true story of the Russian scientist, inventor and spy Lev Termen, creator of the theremin, and of Clara Rockmore, its greatest player. Roving from Manhattan speakeasies to the Siberian taiga, from Alcatraz to the Kremlin, the book is flavored with jazz and espionage and filled with music, longing, and a little kung fu. Michaels’ reading will be preceded by a theremin performance by Rob Schwimmer, founding member and co-director of the New York Theremin Society and one of the top theremin virtuosos in the world, whose compositions have been featured in theater, television and movies.