There’s nothing quite as restorative as popping into a peaceful and air-conditioned art gallery during a hot summer afternoon. A brief stroll reflecting on beauty in a cool chamber can provide a needed reset during the hot hustle and bustle of a busy summer day. To offer you an afternoon pop-up exhibit, Midday Classics will feature "Music and Painting" weekdays at 1:00 during August.
Join Jana Lee Ross for this musical art gallery and discover exhibits from Respinghi, Laurie Johnson, Caroline Shaw, Enrique Granados, and many other composers who have created music inspired by specific paintings.
This "Painting and Music" series will culminate with a birthday celebration for Claude Debussy on August 22. Though Debussy is considered the leading composer of Impressionist music, he personally disliked the term. He wrote to his publisher in 1908:
“I’m attempting ‘something different,’ realities in some sense, what imbeciles call impressionism, just about the least appropriate term possible”
Though Debussy’s music is rich with visual references, with titles such as “The Sunken Cathedral,” “The Girl With the Flaxen Hair,” and “Gardens in the Rain,” the imagery is often more inspired by poetry than painting. But his love of visual media is unmistakable. He called some of his own works of art “sketches” (“d’un cahier d’esquisses), “engravings” (Trois Estampes), and “watercolors” (Deux Aquarelles).
Throughout August, you can hear musical interpretations of Italian Renaissance geniuses, a Dutch Master or two, and (no offense to Debussy) perhaps a French Impressionist.
