Dan Brown Returns to Music Hall

On Friday, May 18, the international #1 bestselling author Dan Brown returns to The Music Hall to talk about writing, movie making, science, religion, and more in the first ever benefit for Writers on a New England Stage. 

Proceeds from the evening will help The Music Hall and New Hampshire Public Radio continue to present today’s top writers – ranging from Ann Patchett to Chris Matthews, Jodi Picoult to the late John Updike, Elizabeth Gilbert to Stephen King – to Music Hall audiences and NHPR listeners.

"As a big fan of both The Music Hall and New Hampshire Public Radio, I'm honored to help celebrate two organizations of such great local importance," said Dan Brown.

“Dan Brown was one of the first authors we presented in Writers on a New England Stage,  back in our first season in 2006, and we are delighted he’ll take the stage again in this special Benefit.  It is fitting that one of the Seacoast’s very own should recognize the great value of this celebrated writers series – to the community, to literacy across New England, and to the ‘life of the mind,’ said Patricia Lynch, Executive Director of The Music Hall and Executive Producer of its signature writers series, Writers on a New England Stage and Writers in the Loft.  “Dan’s first event here gained the attention of international audiences, and, deservedly so, as he writes some of today’s most provocative and fascinating books. It’s going to be a remarkable evening,” she added. 

Following his on-stage discussion, the author will be in dialogue with NHPR host Virginia Prescott, who will also take questions from the audience. The house band Dreadnaught will provide live music.

Dan Brown is the author of numerous #1 bestselling novels, including The Da Vinci Code, which has become one of the bestselling novels of all time as well as the subject of heated debate among readers and scholars. Brown's novels are published in 52 languages around the world with 200 million copies in print.

In 2005, Brown was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME Magazine, whose editors credited him with "keeping the publishing industry afloat; renewed interest in Leonardo da Vinci and early Christian history; spiking tourism to Paris and Rome; a growing membership in secret societies; the ire of Cardinals in Rome; eight books denying the claims of the novel and seven guides to read along with it; a flood of historical thrillers; and a major motion picture franchise."

The son of a mathematics teacher and a church organist, Brown was raised on a prep school campus where he developed a fascination with the paradoxical interplay between science and religion. These themes eventually formed the backdrop for his books. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Phillips Exeter Academy, where he later returned to teach English before focusing his attention full time to writing. Brown is currently at work on a new book as well as the Columbia Pictures film version of his most recent novel, The Lost Symbol.

Submitted by Margaret Talcott, associate producer, Writers on a New England Stage, Music Hall, Portsmouth