Experiment in artistic expression

A unique live performance integrating music, video, and literary art drew an audience from across the WSU Pullman campus and around the world for an evening of “Intersecting Expressions.

“The feeling on stage was incredible,” said Christiano Rodrigues, an assistant professor of music who conceived the performance. “There is a sort of excitement that comes with the unpredictable nature of this project, which I think resonated with all present.”

The project combined visual art created by professors Squeak Meisel and Io Palmer from the Department of Fine Arts and poetry by Darryl Singleton, professor of music, with music performed by Rodrigues on violin and Karen Ngyuen on piano.

An art form devoid of image or words, music “is often abstract to the listener and no two people experience it in the same way,” Rodrigues said. Since we all hear sounds and relate to them differently, the event sought to answer the question: How do different artists express music through their own art?

The artists presented their impressions of compositions by Bach and Brahms and lesser-known composers Reynaldo Hahn, Amy Beach, and Florence Price.

“When the lights go down, the audience will witness live music, a film, and poetry – all expressing the very same program of music in three distinct manners,” Rodrigues said before the event. “We are hoping this experiment will provide our audience with an immersive, multidimensional experience of art.

“Squeak Meisel, Io Palmer, and Darryl Singleton are simply among the most dynamic and creative humans I have had the opportunity to work with, and I think there is a mutual desire to further and grow this collaboration into additional projects in the near future.”

Top photo: Rodrigues on violin and Ngyuen on piano perform in front of a film by Meisel and Palmer (photo by Meagan Marsh Pine, WSU fine arts graduate student).

By J. Adrian Aumen, College of Arts and Sciences