Pierrot lunaire

Location: Kaldor Hall, ground level
Free, no bookings required

Soprano Jane Sheldon will be joined by conductor Jack Symonds and an epic line-up of international musicians (Lina Andanovska, Matthew Duvall, Blair Harris, Lisa Kaplan, Jason Noble and Véronique Serret) for an exclusive Sydney performance of the classic song cycle Pierrot lunaire (1912) by Arnold Schoenberg, a close friend of Kandinsky’s. This will be followed by a new musical response to Pierrot lunaire by US composer Amy Beth Kirsten: Colombine’s Paradise Theatre (2013) in three movements: ‘Bass drum moon … in which Pierrot fails to reach Colombine’, ‘My charming murderer … in which Colombine falls to Harlequin’s seduction’, and ‘She comes undone … in which Colombine is released and listens for Pierrot’.

Wednesday 24 January 2024

7.30–8.30pm

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Settle in for some sensorially rich evenings at the Art Gallery of New South Wales this summer with a free program of performances celebrating the importance of music to the art and thought of Vasily Kandinsky.

Featuring commissioned compositions alongside classics from the early 20th century, Klänge (meaning ‘sounds’ in German) is a series of live music sessions, co-curated with percussionist and composer Claire Edwardes OAM and performed by virtuosic members of Sydney’s Ensemble Offspring in collaboration with Grammy award–winning, Chicago-based group Eighth Blackbird.

Kandinsky explored the synergies between painting and music, and considered music’s abstract language a model for a new form of abstraction in painting. Using colour and form to elicit the sensations aroused through vibration, pitch and the duration of sound, he referred to kläng (‘sound’) throughout his writings and, on occasion, in the titles of his works. To Kandinsky, ‘sound’ was interchangeable with the notion of ‘inner resonance’ or ‘spiritual vibration’.

Klänge presents musical compositions that will riff and swirl in relation to the artist’s paintings presented in the Kandinsky exhibition at the Art Gallery.

Live music program
Klänge

Wednesdays 7.30pm
10 January – 14 February 2024
Art Gallery of New South Wales
South Building
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