The University of Minnesota's 82-year-old Northrop Auditorium, home of commencement ceremonies, dance performances, and the odd Neil Young concert, went under the knife February, 2011, for a deep re-imagining of its purposes and spaces. The first weekend in April, Northrop celebrates its 2014 Grand Reopening with American Ballet Theatre. Three short days later, April 9, English presents our Freier lecture in the main hall, with Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell--the first event on the Carson Family Stage that is free and open to the public. We are proud to have been invited by Northrop to participate in its reopening festivities, which continue through the spring. (English alumnus Garrison Keillor brings the cast and crew of A Prairie Home Companion to Northrop April 26, for a live broadcast, with musical guests the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.)Check out the videos on the Northrop website to see how dramatic the reconstruction has been. After three years of work, the dark main hall has been shaved from 4800 seats to an intimate 2700. A new 168-seat hall has been built on the fourth floor. There are offices now for the Honors Program and the Institute for Advanced Study, as well as practice, seminar, and study spaces, including a café and coffee bar. A tour this month unveiled a bright building where age was cushioned with smart design and a feeling of warmth.
Mitchell's brilliant time-traveling novel Cloud Atlas was, of course, made into a 2012 movie starring Tom Hanks and Halle Berry. A subsequent novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet, took place in late-18th-century Japan. With The Bone Clocks, set to be published in September, Mitchell again ventures into the future, following a wayward young woman through 60 years from 1984 to the mid-21st century, at which point the world's climate is in collapse. As his English publisher describes, "The arc of a life, a social seismograph, a fantasy of shadows and an inquiry into aging, mortality and survival, The Bone Clocks could only have been written by David Mitchell." The novelist has been described, simply, as "a genius," by The New York Review of Books.Don't miss this chance to get a preview of both Mitchell's latest novel and the new life of the second most recognizable building in Minnesota.
The 7:30 pm April 9 Esther Freier Endowed Lecture with novelist David Mitchell at Northrop Auditorium is free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations necessary. There are plenty of seats; please join us!
