ArtSounds

ArtSounds continues its sixth year of collaborative performances by composers, performers and visual artists.  Initiated by faculty from the Kansas City Art Institute and University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music and Dance, ArtSounds explores cross-media expression through creative concert-making. Co-directors Mara Gibson and Paul Rudy set the stage for concert events outside the box and inside the mind's eye and the eye's ear.

Faculty partners from each institution work as co-conspirators from vision and sound to produce provocative events that explore media and music, demonstrating how art sounds and music sees. In ArtSounds performances, vision informs hearing and hearing guides sight in this essential dialogue at the messy intersections of human experience.

ArtSounds performances take place at 7:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of the month in Epperson Auditorium in Vanderslice Hall on the campus of the Kansas City Art Institute, unless otherwise noted. 

ArtSounds 2012-2013 Performance Series - Spring 2013

Feb. 12, 2013 – Two Chamber Operas

Collaborators: Ryan Oldham and Nihan Yesil 

“Numera,” by Ryan Oldham, is a children’s opera about two shapes (Triangle and Square) that live peacefully in an imaginary land, but this peace is interrupted when a third shape (Circle) arrives. Since there is no libretto for “Numera,” audience members will draw their conclusions about the plot based on sound, gesture, and staging.  

In "Pondery," an opera for shadow play by Nihan Yesil, let the shadows lead you to the deepest corners of your imagination; you may just find what you're looking for.

Oldham is an adjunct professor at the University of Missouri-KIansas City and instructs the conservatory's online courses. He also teaches at MCC-Blue River and conducts proviate lessons at the UMKC Community Music and Dance Academy.

Yesil is a multimedia artist who works with overhead projectors and has a strong interest in the art of Shadow Theater. She was a Charlotte Street Foundation Urgan Spaces resident artist in 2011-2012 and also received an Inspiration Grant from the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City in 2012. She studied composition on the undergraduate level in Istanbul Turkey and is in the graduate program at UMKC.

March 12, 2013 – "A Day in the Park," a multimedia musical drama

Collaborators: Poetry by Dina Von Zweck, music by Jorge Sosa and video by Jorge Sosa and Mauricio Niebla

Featuring:

Victoria Sofia Botero, soprano
Joshua Lawlor, baritone
Sascha Groschang, cello

"A Day in the Park" is a multimedia project involving poetry, music and video art. The piece is a collaboration between New York-based artists and Kansas City performers. "A Day in the Park" describes a day at Zuccotti Park during the "Occupy Wall Street" protests. Dina Von Zweck's poetry vividly captures the mood of the protests and depicts a poetic vision of the site and the people who were present. The video images are assembled from footage taken at the site, placing the audience in the middle of the protest. The listener may be tempted to read the stanzas as if they were separate poems, but, according to the poet, "It's best to read the work and hear the unity and flow instead of separateness, the unity and flow as a musical progression, as in a rhapsody or tone poem, modulating from theme to theme, often changing key and tempo, failling into reveries and rising toward moments of climax, but always preserving its unity of feeling as it moves onward in a wavelike flow."

Jorge Sosa is a Mexican-born composer currently residing in New Yorki. He received a Doctor in Musical Arts degree from UMKC, a master's degree in music theory and composition from Mannes College of Music and a licentiate degree in music composition from the Centro de Investigacion y Estudios de la Musica in Mexico City. His works have been performed in Mexico, the United States and Europe.

Dina Von Zweck is the author of 10 children's books, six how-to-cope booklets, three non-fiction Christmas books, seven books of poetry and three novels. Her feature film script "Death & Diamonds" won first prize in the New York International Film festival, and her stage play "Virgin" won first prize in the TRU Playwriting Contest in 1999.

April 23, 2013 – Mara Gibson's Creative Collaboration's Class

La Esquina, 1000 W. 25th St.
Collaborators: Students of CONS 438