A collaboration of 2006 U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall and Grammy® Award-winning composer Herschel Garfein, Mortality Mansions reflects on the themes of love, sexuality and bereavement in old age from Hall’s poems and traces the adoption of Hall’s work into the curricula of medical schools across the country. The world premiere performance features tenor Michael Slattery and Dmitri Dover, acclaimed pianist for the Metropolitan opera Lindemann Young Artist program, joined by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Richard Ford, National Book Award-winning poet Jean Valentine and Dr. Rita Charon, professor of Clinical Medicine and director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University, who will read Hall’s poems. Hall will participate via remote video link from his farmhouse in New Hampshire.