The short version: “A Night of Grief & Mystery combines stories and observations by author/culture activist Stephen Jenkinson, drawn from his decades of work in palliative care, with original songs/sonics by recording artist Gregory Hoskins.
These two Canadian artists have been exploring the intersection of their work for 8 years, across 3 continents, in 3 recordings and 2 short films. They come to the road now in 2023 as they did in the beginning: the two of them, a singer and a storyteller, out into the mystery days.”
More info: https://orphanwisdom.com/event/nogmpittsburgh/
Date: Friday, August 25, 2023 – Showtime: 7:30-9:30pm (doors open at 7pm)
Location: THIS IS RED, 605 E 9th Avenue, Pittsburgh (Munhall), 15120, USA https://thisisredeventspace.com/
Admission: $25 Early-bird Family/Group (3+ tix) $35 Early-bird General Admission / $35 Family/Group (3+ tix) $45 General Admission
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/147454678207906
The Longer Version:
“An improbable, ceremonial night of words, wonder and spirit work, Stephen Jenkinson and Gregory Hoskins have crafted a new genre of performance in Nights of Grief and Mystery. The evening combines stories and observations by author/culture activist Jenkinson, drawn from his decades of work in palliative care, with original songs/sonics by recording artist Hoskins. In the wake of COVID-19 and accompanying local and global crises, their work creates a salve and passage forward through grief, a new approach to mortality. Jenkinson shares, ‘The current appetite is for either distraction or distress, and we seem to be in neither business.’ The Nights of Grief and Mystery are timely, urgent, alert, and steeped in mortal mystery.
The 2023 World Tour brings the pair to Israel, USA, Scandinavia, UK/Scotland, Australia/New Zealand before traveling across their home country of Canada. They are supported in each location by a group of local, grassroots volunteers. This is their first visit to Pittsburgh after their last event in 2019 at This Is Red, a former Slovakian church turned global creative agency and event space in Homestead.
Local host Louise Moyer, a retired Navy engineer turned Washington County farmer and yoga teacher, became familiar with Jenkinson’s work after her husband died. Seeing him perform live with Hoskins, she shares, ‘It was a cathartic experience, beautiful, singular, and inspiring.’ She encourages anyone who has experienced grief–in its myriad forms–or who ‘sees or wants to see life through a new lens’ to join us.
Concerts for Turbulent Times they surely are. Not poets, maybe, but the evenings are poetic. The Nights are musical and grave and raucous and stilling, which probably means they are theatrical. Love letters to life are written and read aloud. There’s some boldness in them. They have that tone. These nights have the mark of our time upon them, and they’re timely, urgent, alert, steeped in mortal mystery. They’re quixotic. They have swagger. What would you call such a thing? They called it Nights of Grief & Mystery.
Stephen Jenkinson, a Harvard Divinity School graduate, led the counseling programme in Canada’s largest home-based palliative care programme. A “wretched anxiety” at most death beds prevailed, a cultural poverty reigned, a death phobia, a grief illiteracy had its way. He knew it then: grief is a skill to be honored and learned, not tranquilized or counseled away. Grief, that other way of loving life: that was the work. A chance encounter with musician Gregory Hoskins led to a tour: evenings of music that are part concert, part lamentation, part ribaldry, part poetry, part lifting the mortal veil and learning the mysteries there. This unexpected partnership with Hoskins gives Jenkins another way of working the death trade work. They are bracing, blessing-laced encounters with the dark roads and the rough Gods of these times, with the ways of human making and human being.
A new genre: There are at least three challenges that face every musician. 1/ Write new music that’s worth listening to. Creating a new live show that’s worth attending. Inspiration and perspiration, luck and fortune are mandatory. They both have their joys and their struggles. 3/ Something so difficult that musicians don’t even attempt it: come up with a new genre of performance. Nights of Grief and Mystery is a ceremonial genre so old that it’s new again.
Stephen Jenkinson, MTS, MSW, is an author, ceremonialist and farmer Stephen teaches internationally and is the creator and principal instructor of the Orphan Wisdom School, founded in 2010. With Master’s degrees from Harvard University (Theology) and the University of Toronto (Social Work), he has worked extensively with dying people and their families, is a former programme director in a major Canadian hospital and former assistant professor in a prominent Canadian medical school. He is the author of several books including the award-winning Die Wise: A Manifesto for Sanity and Soul. His newest book is co-authored with Kimberly Ann Johnson, Reckoning and he’s written Come of Age: The Case for Elderhood in a Time of Trouble, A Generation’s Worth: Spirit Work in a Time of Trouble, How It All Could Be and Money and the Soul’s Desires: A Meditation. Stephen is the subject of the National Film Board of Canada feature length film documentary Griefwalker, and Lost Nation Road, a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the wheelhouse of a mystery train. His Nights of Grief and Mystery world tours, with singer/ songwriter Gregory Hoskins, are odes to wonder, love letters for the willingness to know endings. https://orphanwisdom.com/
Gregory Hoskins ~ singer/ songwriter musician Hoskins was signed to True North Records in 1990 and released three albums with The Stickpeople during the 1990s. He opened for The Indigo Girls, The Nevile Brothers, Sarah McLachlan, Rickie Lee Jones, and Odetta. He has been an independent artist since 1996, and during that time has released six solo albums and contributing vocals to concerts with The Art of Time Ensemble and a recording with The Henrys. He has also shared the stage or studio with Hawksley Workman, Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Serena Ryder. Other projects have included work with Debajemuhjig Theatre on Manitoulin for time, and writing and recording songs with women in prison. He did a number of shows with guitarist, mandolin player and singer-songwriter Kevin Breit. Material from his most recent release, Vain + Alone, is featured in the Nights of Grief & Mystery. Please visit Gregory Hoskins Music to listen.”
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