USU Art Museum’s Museum + Music Presents “Sounding the Canvas: Beyond the New York School”

LOGAN– The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art (NEHMA) at Utah State University concludes its 2017-2018 Museum + Music series with “Sounding the Canvas: Beyond the New York School.” The Museum + Music series aims to connect the visual with the aural by presenting music that relates to artwork in the museum’s collection. The event will take place Sunday, April 29, at 3 p.m., in the Russell/Wanlass Performance Hall on the USU Logan campus.

The 2017-18 academic year’s, Museum + Music has explored different conceptions of “community” suggested by the intersection of visual art and music. For this concert, Brant Bayless (Utah Symphony), Emily Ezola (USU Music Department) and Brian Daurelle (Manhattan School of Music) will present a program inspired by New York artists and composers working in the 50s and 60s who found inspiration through each other’s work. This era saw artists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko display paintings in the very galleries that composers like Morton Feldman and John Cage first premiered their works.

"Sounding the Canvas: Beyond the New York School" will feature musical works from contemporary composers who studied with Feldman, including Linda Catlin Smith, Bernadette Speech and Annea Lockwood, juxtaposed with artwork in NEHMA’s collection by the likes of Sonia Gechtoff, Sam Erenberg and Leo Valledor. The inclusion of these artists and composers challenges the male-dominated culture of the New York School, which often questioned whether women could be successful artists or composers.

“The music and artwork featured showcases artists and composers who were influenced by the New York School but whose work evolved through their own personal journeys,” said Christopher Scheer, curator of Museum + Music and associate professor of musicology at USU. “Many of these artworks and musical compositions may be unfamiliar, but NEHMA’s collecting mission has always been to highlight underrepresented artists, genres and processes.”

NEHMA is located on the USU Logan Campus. The museum is closed for construction but will reopen on Sept. 15. The concerts are free and open to the public with a reception following the performance.

See the museum’s website (artmuseum.usu.edu) to stay up-to-date on NEHMA events.