{"id":413053,"date":"2021-07-22T15:32:50","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T19:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmusicusa.wpengine.com\/?p=413053"},"modified":"2021-07-28T13:46:40","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T17:46:40","slug":"do-you-hear-what-i-see","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmusicusa.org\/nmbx\/do-you-hear-what-i-see\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Hear What I See?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I spent my youth playing notes on a page. And if you\u2019re reading this, there\u2019s a good chance you did too. This notation, particular for what we think of as Western music, is merely one graphic, albeit specific, representation of musical sound. And some of it is quite pleasingly arranged on the page, with calligraphy and shaped staves. But connections of music to visual art are as old as music notation itself.<\/p>\n

Chant was notated with beautiful framing on the pages. Mussorgsky\u2019s Pictures at an Exhibition<\/em> translates the paintings of Richard Hartmann just as Debussy\u2019s La Mer<\/em> is a sonic response to Katsushika Hokusai\u2019s Great Wave Off Kanagawa<\/em>. William Grant Still took as his subject works by Richmond Barth\u00e9, Sargent Johnson, and Augusta Savage in his Suite for Violin and Piano. Gian Carlo Menotti broke through his writer\u2019s block when he visited Botticelli\u2019s Adoration of the Magi<\/em> to come up with perennial holiday favorite Amahl and the Night Visitors<\/em>, and Lady Gaga was likewise inspired by the same artist\u2019s Birth of Venus<\/em> for her own \u201cVenus.\u201d<\/p>\n

These visual connections give the listener a starting point for understanding, which is especially useful in the field of experimental music. What is unidentifiable sonically can trigger a memory or a feeling when it\u2019s attached to a visual. A visual that inspires the composer or improviser is sure to also inspire audiences to a fuller and more moving experience.<\/p>\n

A visual that inspires the composer or improviser is sure to also inspire audiences to a fuller and more moving experience.<\/div>\n

The Kentler International Drawing Center is driving this connection home with its now-touring exhibition Music as Image and Metaphor<\/a><\/em>. The Kentler Flatfiles have been accessible to Brooklyn visitors for three decades, and curators planned to bring a selection of the collection to the Bartlett\u2019s Center in Columbus, GA this past year. This would have combined with performances by composer\/pianist Michael Kowalski and percussionist\/composer Allen Otte via the music department at Columbus State University.<\/p>\n

In a dilemma familiar to many last year, by October 2020 it was decided that the plans had to change. But Kowalski and Otte did not completely abandon the concert – they instead created a lasting musical installation, able to reach far more visitors than a single performance, with an opening in January 2021. For 40 pieces from the collection, Kowalski and Otte would create individual short musical responses. 40 new pieces of music, connected to visual works, accessible in the gallery and also online. A setup that allows the visitor to absorb themselves in the aesthetic conversation, or, exist within the infinity mirror of creativity.<\/p>\n

Both Kowalski and Otte, as well as curators David Houston and Florence Neal, were happy with the result, and now the exhibition is headed to the Ohr-O\u2019Keefe Museum in Biloxi, MS this month.<\/p>\n

Allen Otte is a member of the Percussive Arts Society Hall of Fame. With the Black Earth and later Percussion Group Cincinnati he has been on the cutting edge of percussion-based chamber music. (Note: the author is a former student of Allen Otte.<\/em>) Michael Kowalski was a pioneer of computer-based composition, who moved from chamber music to opera when he founded The Postindustrial Players. The two overlapped as students at Oberlin, and have collaborated before. But while being quite like-minded artistically, their approaches could best be described as opposites.<\/p>\n

Knowing the likely answer, I asked both men if it was easier to write one 20-minute piece or 20 one-minute pieces.<\/p>\n

Otte found the episodic nature delightful. \u201cI could boom, you know, get an idea, make a response and not be responsible for actually much more than than the idea and the response. And in a minute or 90 seconds, it’s gone.\u201d Percussion being an area where less is more in many cases likely made this more intuitive. \u201cIf it were twenty one minutes from me, I would have been uncomfortable,\u201d he said. But he had expected Kowalski, who lists \u201ccomposer\u201d first among his occupations, to keep the game at a high level.<\/p>\n

Kowalski agreed that the two are of a different mind, and thinks an attentive listener could take note of different kinds of craftsmanship happening. But that\u2019s part of the fun, \u201cbecause you don’t get in one person’s groove and stay there. It takes 45 or 50 minutes to actually hear the whole thing. If you just walk through the show and spend a minute on every piece, that’s how long it would take.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guests can take a tour through the exhibition, listening to pieces inspired by each piece of art. There is no stated theme, and no planned progression. The locations in Columbia and Biloxi are set up differently, with the images in a different order, so if a story can be extrapolated, it will be different than any other version of the exhibition. This includes an online visit, which can of course be in any order one likes.<\/p>\n

In the compositional process, nearly opposite approaches were both successful.<\/p>\n

Kowalski outlined specific procedures for himself, almost like a game:<\/p>\n

Music as image:<\/p>\n