An accident leaves a brilliant young cellist brain-damaged. She can still play, but her concentration slips after a few minutes, leaving her unable to finish a piece. In The Molenstraat Music Festival, set a thousand years in the future, medical technology has advanced sufficiently to repair the scar tissue in her brain, but no one can predict exactly what the repairs will do: they might fix all her other difficulties and leave her unable to play at all. Unwilling to risk that, she comes to retired musician Clancy Jonah for help. With his help her concentration improves, but will it be enough to let her once again perform before an audience?
Beside music and creativity, this lovely novella by New Zealand author Sean Monaghan touches on loss and discovery, hard choices, and the depth of feeling in a student/teacher relationship. There’s quite a lot packed into this story’s mere 70 pages.
Audience: anyone interested in understanding the creative spirit.