My Heart

“Nights I wander the world’s city streets, looking for you and talking to you, my heart.”

- Danaë Killian

Maverick pianist Danaë Killian will show the world her cracked and shining heart in a thrilling solo recital, inspired by German Expressionist poet Else Lasker-Schüler’s provocative work Mein Herz: Ein Liebesroman mit Bildern und wirklich lebenden Menschen (1912).

My Heart is a musical escape from the scintillating, but ultimately doomed artistic counterculture of pre-World War One Berlin, so powerfully evoked in Lasker-Schüler’s novel.

My Heart is made of music by Danaë’s beloved local composer friends, by Danaë herself, and by Arnold Schoenberg, Lasker-Schüler’s contemporary, who once gave the poet money in a time of need.

Lasker-Schüler’s Berlin of 1911 bleeds through Danaë Killian’s My Heart into our Naarm-Melbourne, and in so doing invokes themes of night-wandering, soul-homelessness, and starry yearning.

A portion of the proceeds from this performance will go towards the creation of an album of My Heart.