Paul Simon (left) and Paul Muldoon share a laugh during a lively conversation about Simon’s work and career. Photo by Denise Applewhite.
Paul Simon recalls his early musical influences during the conversation that spanned a range of issues and topics from the music industry to politics to his latest musical explorations. Photo by Denise Applewhite.
Paul Simon surprised the audience of over 800 Princeton University students, faculty and staff with a performance of The Sound of Silence. Photo by Denise Applewhite.
On March 3, internationally renowned singer/songwriter Paul Simon visited Princeton University to talk about his career and his most recent work in a discussion facilitated by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and Princeton Professor Paul Muldoon. The Grammy Award-winning artist also offered an impromptu performance to an audience of over 800, made up of mostly students joined by faculty and staff at Richardson Auditorium on the Princeton campus. The event was presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Performance Central.
In a conversation with Muldoon, Simon discussed a range of topics including his most recent work, his early influences, the current state of the music industry, and the challenges artists face in today’s world. He also took questions from Princeton students in the audience.
In talking about his most recent musical endeavors, Simon described his current interest in the work of 20th-century composer Harry Partch, who composed microtonally, closely looking at the range within each note. Partch contended the western scale of 12 notes in an octave was actually 36 notes and did not fully represent the range of notes. Partch invented instruments to play microtonal intervals. Simon had an opportunity to play and record with these instruments for the new songs he is working on. He played a recording of one of these new songs, “The Insomniac’s Lullaby.”
Princeton’s oldest a cappella group, The Nassoons, opened the event with a performance of a medley of songs from Simon’s album, Graceland.
Prior to the public talk, Simon visited a creative writing/music course taught by Muldoon, “How to Write a Song.” In this popular course, Muldoon leads students with varied backgrounds in music and creative writing in the creation of new songs. Working in small teams, the students are asked to compose music and write lyrics each week that respond to such emotionally charged themes as contempt, gratitude, revenge, desire, disgust, joyousness, remorse, loneliness, despair and defiance. Simon is the most recent in a series of guest artists who have joined Muldoon and the 26 enrolled students throughout the semester. He spent three hours with the students earlier that afternoon, listening to and critiquing the songs the songwriting teams had created that week.
The students will perform songs from the course in a public concert at the end of the semester.
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