On Saturday, January 12, 2019, MUSIQA will be offering audiences a unique audio-visual experience at Midtown Arts and Theatre Center Houston (MATCH). The performance will feature a visual artist interpreting, on canvas, the music of performing musicians. The performance will be live.

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If Tuesday’s sneak peek was any indication, audiences will be enthralled by Traces of Blue, one of four performances which explore the intersection of music and the visual arts. Accompanied by a string quartet, artist Geraldina Interiano Wise renders the lush composition of Annie Gosfield’s The Blue Horse Walks on the Horizon, into visual splendor.

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The quartet is made up of Sergein Yap on viola, Barrett Sills on cello, and Jackson Guillen and Natalie Lin on violin. Geraldina uses the tempo of the music to dictate the flow of her strokes matching the ephemeral immediacy of each note. For collaborators who have only recently begun working together, their performance blends together with both the ease and power of artists who have been harmonizing for many years.

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Wise’s raw canvas is substantial, the height and width of a man standing with his arms akimbo. She dances over it using unorthodox methods for applying her paint, including a broom, cleaning materials, and a weed sprayer. Amidst the various applications of paint, she deploys materials of various textures to further transform her canvas. The materials range from patterned cloth to mosquito netting to the very broom she just painted with. Wise also utilizes the bold blacks of charcoal to bring out the earthy hues, as well as her signature indigo that she mixes by hand.

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Over its eighteen minutes, the pace of the performance is a journey in moods, at times becoming frantic and at others smooth and soothing. Wise says the music’s immediacy feels like there is something grave happening, set on the edge of humanity, but the tension lends hope by the performance’s conclusion. For Wise, her creation is personal: an ode to her people who came here as workers from Latin America.

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In addition to Traces of Blue, the night will include three other art-inspired performances: Karim Al-Zand’s Six Bagatelles, a piano trio; The Blue Studio, a piano trio by composer Stephen Hartke; and Loren Loiacono’s Waxing Cerulean for string quartet.

 

Performances begin at 7:30 pm with a pre-performance conversation for early birds at 7pm. For more information visit musiqahouston.org.