We invite you to join us for an Intuit event like no other—a night at the symphony! Art that you know and love has been transformed into music by composer Jefferson Friedman—Sacred Heart: Explosion, the Chicago premier of an orchestral work based on one of Henry Darger’s more intense paintings, the diptych entitled “Sacred Heart: Explosion.” Performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conducted by Leonard Slatkin, it premieres at 8 PM on Thursday, June 5, 2008.

American composer Jefferson Friedman (b. 1974) is the winner of the 2004 Rome Prize Fellowship in Musical Composition from the American Academy in Rome. His music has been performed throughout the United States and abroad, most notably at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and Avery Fisher Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, and the American Academy in Rome.

Born in 1892, Henry Darger lived a shadowy and reclusive existence for many years in a small north-side Chicago apartment until his death in 1973. Posthumously, Darger’s extraordinary “secret life” was discovered in the form of 15 massive volumes comprised of some 15,145 pages typed singled-spaced on legal-sized paper entitled The Story of the Vivian Girlsin What is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion, as well as 300 drawings and water color illustrations, mostly painted on both sides that accompanied the epic tale. Darger’s art is today considered to be among the most original and stunning works of outsider art ever produced.

This January, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art completed the Henry Darger Room Collection, featuring architectural elements, fixtures, and furnishings from Darger’s original home and studio along with tracings, clippings from newspapers and magazines that Darger used in his work.

We need your help to make Darger’s source materials accessible to students and researchers. Your donation will help us create facsimiles of Darger’s scrapbooks and source materials, create interpretive materials, conserve and preserve artifacts from the Room, and create an illustrated educational brochure about the Henry Darger Room Collection.

Invite and encourage your colleagues, friends, relatives and associates to join us for this exciting, one-time opportunity including an evening with the composer at Intuit, Wednesday, June 4 from 5-8 PM, and the Chicago premier of this exciting work on Thursday, June 5. Tickets range in price from $85 - $1,000.

In addition to hearing this exciting work, the evening will also feature Pinchas Zukerman for two pieces: Hindemith’s genial Der Schwanendreher and Harold in Italy, one of Berlioz’s most ingenious works for solo viola.

Enlist at the following levels: $1000 : Darger’s Army General VIP Main Floor Seat (First 12 rows) Invitation to a cocktail reception with the composer on Wednesday, June 4 Private dinner with composer after June 4th reception $500 : Vivian Girl Main floor ticket Invitation to a cocktail reception with the composer on Wednesday, June 4 $250 : Blengin Lower Balcony ticket Invitation to a cocktail reception with the composer on Wednesday, June 4 $85 : Private First Class Performance only: Terrace seating facing the conductor