International Pynchon Week: Visit, Jack Campbell, Liesel / Ariya

International Pynchon Week 2026, a conference hosted by the American Studies team at TU Dortmund University, concludes with a very special musical event at domicil: Visit will perform songs from Thomas Pynchon’s novels. They are joined by composer and violinist Jack M. Campbell, who will perform his piece “A Music Not Without Majesty,” as well as local heroes Liesel and Ariya. There will be kazoos.

Visit
is the band project of Tyler Burba (NYC), who recorded six albums to date with various visiting musicians: Visit (2006), Think God! (2009), Existential Hymns (2022), Fool’s Leap of Faith (2025), and the forthcoming Exit Ayres. In 2020, Tyler Burba (voc, g, p, h) collaborated with literary scholar Christian Hänggi (sax, cl) on “Now Everybody”— Visit Interprets Songs by Thomas Pynchon (https://now-everybody.party/wp), which they will perform in Dortmund with Simon Truog (b) and Dario Maier (dr) along with new material.

Jack M. Campbell
is a Canadian composer, concert violinist, arts producer and recording artist. Called a “Prodigiously Gifted Young Violinist” (Pwyll ap Siôn; The Strad) and a “Young Master of the Arts” (London Daily News), Campbell has performed in Canada, England, Wales, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the USA.

Liesel
On both piano and guitar, this young artist sings original songs that sit closely with melancholy but always hold a hint of hope. Her lyrics deal with the troubles of coming of age, love, the chaos in her mind, and the ordinary madness that sometimes just needs an outlet. The music is complemented by witty moments and the wild stories behind her songs. She sings with a soft but vibrant voice about everything that comes, goes, or annoys – always with the sentiment that it will all make sense eventually.

Ariya
is a singer-songwriter whose music lives in quiet, intimate moments, written on bedroom floors, in the aftermath of heavy feelings, and somewhere between letting go and holding on. Her songs move through stories of grief, love, and the quiet weight of growing up, tracing the deeper corners of the inner world and what once only silently existed that slowly found its way outward, carrying everything it couldn’t leave behind.