News from Brian FELSEN & Elif SAVAS:

Brian FELSEN, Producer of the COUP documentary.

1. COUP has been getting great reviews and was a hit at the Middle East Conference in Orlando and the Melbourne Film Festival.  Many universities have purchased a copy, so we're hoping that this complex and interesting story will become better understood here and abroad.

2. Elif Savas (the film's director) just released a new CD, ìSongs From The Age Of The Closet,î a compilation of art songs written by gay composers from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Composers on the disc are Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947), Karol Maciej Szymanowski (1882-1937), Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920).  The composers presented here showcase an incredibly rich font of talent, and it's a delight to bring them together.  The biographies of these composers truly are fascinating, and more information about them can be found on our website.

Elif SAVAS, director of the COUP documentary

The disc sounds incredible - Ms. Savas is (in addition to a filmmaker) a noted Turkish soprano who's won several international competitions. The pianist is the composer Martin Hennessy, who founded Positive Music, a musical ensemble dedicated to promoting AIDS/HIV awareness and education.

3. Brian Felsen (COUP's producer) composed an oratorio about consciousness (www.brianfelsen.com) and is working on a follow-up with the philosophers Daniel C. Dennett and Nicholas Humphrey.  The work, entitled "View from the Strangers' Gallery," has gotten some rave notices from composers such as Lukas Foss and John Zorn; the work was shortlisted for the Wellcome Foundation's prestigious sciart grant.  Brian will be speaking at the Towards a Science of Consciousness Conference in Sk'vde, Sweden in August and at the ArtSci conference in NYC in November.

4. Elif and Brian will be giving concerts in the US and Turkey\ throughout the autumn; we'll let you know when dates develop.

To hear some samples, read more about it, and get a copy of the CD, click on www.elifsavas.com