Art and Music Meet at New Concert Series: Musaics of the Bay
Series Commissions and Premieres over 40 Works in
Virtual Concerts, Multi-Arts Collaborations, and Musical Mentoring
The Bay Area is an epicenter of performing, visual, and creative arts in the U.S., and now, a multi-faceted, multi-disciplinary new series is adding even more luster. Musaics of the Bay, the vision of acclaimed young pianist and artistic director Audrey Vardanega, brings cultural partnerships, numerous artistic commissions, and mentoring of top-tier local talent in live and filmed performance that will enrich the region’s offerings.
Every Monday through June 2021, Stay-at-Home Symposium, Musaics of the Bay’s signature series, will pair diverse performers and living composers with visual artists, poets, sculptors, and filmmakers, in premieres of newly-commissioned musical compositions, based on works of art, preceded by an in-depth conversation among all the participating artists. These Symposium premieres are “musical mosaics” that will unite performers, composers, and other artists from the Bay Area and around the globe in unique creative collaborations; meant to spark the imagination of artists and audiences alike, these synergies will add a new dimension to the traditional listener experience.
As a performer herself, Vardanega has experienced the transformative and life-enriching power of musical partnership, and felt that a
series fostering those relationships and building new ones would enhance the region’s artistic menu. “On our stage,” Vardanega said, “performers present world premieres in weekly broadcasts, visual artists create new work based on extraordinary works of art, and classical, jazz, and world music instrumentalists improvise and curate new programs responding to the art. As a performer, it’s always a thrill to crack open a new piece of music and see what’s ahead, but adding another discipline takes it to a new level. My hope is that the series will bring together different facets of the wider cultural community to find a shared commonality.”
Musaics of the Bay’s Mentor Partnership educational series pairs talented young local students over a period of a few months with established artists, to also create brand new works for the Stay-at-Home Symposium. These relationships take an array of forms, where mentor performers, composers, or other artists guide the creative collaboration process. An upcoming highlight is pianist Jon Nakamatsu’s premiere of a new piece by the gifted student composer Tiffany Cuaresma, based on Simon Dinnerstein’s painting Night. Simon will guide Tiffany through the process of interpreting his painting, which she will take as the inspiration for her composition, premiering on March 29, 2021.
In addition to its monumental, ongoing commissioning project, Musaics’ Virtual Season 2020 presented an exciting array of other online events. After having launched an in-person inaugural season pre-Covid the series, like so many others is now online, featuring Bay Area-based stars of the classical music world in performances of a wide range of repertoire, all of which are accessible online in the Virtual Season archive.
Concerts are FREE. More information on the website, and subscribe to Musaics of the Bay’s YouTube Channel for access. Check out the viewing room to learn more about the art and the musical creations it informed in.
***
WINTER SEASON AT A GLANCE
All Stay-at-Home Symposium events are on
Mondays from 5PM PST unless otherwise noted
Equanimity
Experience guitarist and composer Roberto Granados’ musical response to color, gesture and composure depicted in Berkeley-based abstract expressionist painter Darril Tighe’s work, Equanimity, in an evening of solo guitar performed by the composer.
Copper on Piano
The metallic sounds of the copper piano come to life with the premiere of New York City-based composer Jed Distler’s work for solo piano inspired by the colorful, rapid gestures featured in Boston-based artist Katie Swatland’s “Elements Collection,” featuring pianist Reed Tetzloff
A Perfect Day
Percussion, film, piano and improvisation intersect in NYC-based percussionist Sae Hashimoto and pianist Chris Goodpasture’s collective improvised response to Los Angeles-based filmmaker Gus Reed’s short film, A Perfect Day
Shifting Rhythms
Lost in the crowd – or in sound? The visual artist Sherry Karver pushes traditional boundaries of oil painting, photography, and narrative text to create a unique hybrid. Composer Bryan Lin brings her her “Shifting Rhythms,” a unique artistic hybrid depicting loneliness and the loss of identity, to life in a riveting work featuring violinist Sam Weiser.
January 4, 2021
The Painted Cello
“The Painted Cello” celebrates the composer Kris Kirk‘s musical interpretation of a painting by Timotheos Petrin. Timotheos is both a painter and a cellist and will bring a new solo cello piece to life inspired by his work as a painter.
January 11
A Celebration of Tabla
India’s star percussion instrument in Hindustani classical music, the Tabla, is celebrated tonight featuring one the stars of the instrument Maestro Sandeep Das
SPECIAL EVENT: Saturday, January 16, 2021, 8 PM EST
The first of our Symposium Docuseries: long-form, high-definition, documentary-style features of the notable interdisciplinary featured collaborations.
The Death and Rebirth of Hope: Musical Interpretations of Simon Toparovsky
This special edition of the Stay-at-home-Symposium follows on the heels of summer 2020’s successful collaboration between award-winning jazz pianist Ben Rosenblum and acclaimed visual artist Simon Toparovsky in a full program inspired by the artist. In four brand new compositions and additional free improvisation, Rosenblum tackles some of Toparovsky’s most evocative installations, including the Torso of Prometheus, Hidden Hortus Garden, the Busts of John and Mary, and the sprawling and chaotic depiction of punishment, Castigo. As a complete work, Rosenblum’s musical cycle explores the resilience of the human spirit in the face of great adversity, and the hopefulness and beauty one might find embedded in painful experiences. Rosenblum’s performance is captured and directed by filmmaker Kevin Chiu, which includes commentary by both artists about this series of works and their musical counterparts.
January 25
The Sounds of the Kingdom
The lush ensemble of cello and viola in Gareth Loy’s composition guide us along the creek leading to the San Francisco Bay depicted in abstract landscape artist June Yokell’s painting “Into the Kingdom.”
let me count the signs of life amidst the planet’s dying
Song, voice, and poetry meet in composer Kari Watson’s new composition for voice based on the award-winning poet Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes’ poem of the same name, performed by soprano Maggie Kinabrew.
Isochronal II
The cycles of creation in mixed media artist Penelope Anstruther’s studio practice and Jihwan Yoon’s compositional style join forces in Jihwan Yoon’s composition for violin and clarinet based on Penelope’s wall-based mobile, “Isochronal II.”
The “Special” Clarinet:
Composer KiMani Bridges’s new work for solo clarinet was inspired by the abstract expressionist painting “Special” by Susana Aldanondo created during Covid. She painted it on the last canvas Aldanodo’s father had purchased, while listening to a song about immigration and a hope for a better life. Premiered by clarinetist Michelle Hromin.
Spontaneous Swimming:
What would swimming sound like on the piano? Pianist, composer, and improviser Andrei Romanov explores the world of gesture, rhythm and fluidity with his improvisations for solo piano based on Boston-based painter Alastair Dacey’s playful work about light, movement and water – Swimming Series.
March 1
Early Spring in The Valley
Take a journey through the ephemeral skies and landscapes of Northern California inspired by Wendy Goldberg’s painting “Early Spring in the Valley” and composer Isaac Santos’s new work for solo violin, premiered by Geneva Lewis.
Hello Darkness My Old Friend Photographer Lia Roozendaal’s Hello Darkness My Old Friend gives new life to mundane, discarded objects. In this new work for pianist Suren Barry, composer Seare Farhan elevates these objects even further.