Music inspired by art
Queenstown's renowned producer and director Margaret O’Hanlon has curated Canvas to Composition, a showcase of local musical artists taking place at the end of this month. Each musician has been tasked with composing an original piece or adapting existing works to complement specific visual artworks in Te Atamira’s Lyrics and Lines exhibition.
The evening will include performances from Paulina Antoine Bustos, Thom Bentley, Henry Boyle, Erica Hastie, Louis Koopman, Campbell Reid, Teegs Stallard and Mark Wilson. They will share insights into their creative process, discussing how they find inspiration, adapt melodies, and arrange sound to resonate with the unique vision of each visual artists.
“The exhibition features six Kiwi artists and has been in the front gallery of Te Atamira. They’ve been integrating it with music and other spoken word events – like the Writer’s Festival – so this is the final concert,” O’Hanlon says. “I had a great idea to find six composers to create something to go with the different artists.”
When pairing up other artists, she tried to focus less on the visual themselves and more on how they could inspire lyrics that align with the artist’s intentions. Once putting together the pairs, O’Hanlon took a back seat and is excited to see what everyone comes up with. One example of the pairings include Pauline Antoine Bustos, who will sing a song in her native language of Chilean (showing a different ‘face’), and Julian Hooper, who creates art of many different faces.
“I paired the First Nations woman from Australia, who is also deaf, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, with Henry Boyle. He’s from Wānaka and he does his own compositions. There was something totally unpretentious about what she does, and he is the same way. He doesn’t try for a particular type of genre or style, he just lets the moment take him and goes with the flow. I thought that would be really interesting.”
O’Hanlon first approached Campbell Reid from Queenstown Funk Orchestra, who had been inspired by John Reynolds' improvised mural. Reid happened to be at the opening night of Lyrics and Lines, where Reynolds' piece was first unveiled and had a conversation with O’Hanlon about the idea of doing a composition. He put his hand up straight away, specifically in regards to Reynolds' piece.
“Not because I’m a show off and it was the biggest piece,” Reid says. “But it was particularly rhythmic and being a drummer, it made sense to me to write something for that piece. I roped in Louis Koopman on piano, who’s doing his own composition as well, and Thom Bentley – he’s going to play bass.”
Reid says they’ve got a sketch pad of ideas but will be improvising on the night, keeping it loose. Afterwards they may also continue to workshop the idea and add it to Queenstown Funk Orchestra’s catalogue of originals.
“It’ll be a soundscape but heavily rhythm focused. It’ll be a bit experimental and a little bit melodic as well – exploring the light to dark rhythmic experience.”
The evening will be filled with thought-provoking music and audience members will be invited to visit the gallery and explore the exhibition before the event. Reid says he’ll do a small talk before his piece, so that people can listen and know what’s coming up. For his piece, he’s asked Louis to get experimental under the hood of the piano, so you can expect a bold start and a few surprises along the way.
“It might ask people to think about music composition and different ways musicians might be inspired to create. It’s just a different angle. A singer/songwriter might get inspired by life experiences and emotion, this is just another way to be inspired to create music, and it might get musicians thinking about what they might do,” Reid says.
Canvas to Composition will take place on Thursday, 30 January, at 7pm. Lyrics and Lines will close just over a week later on 9 February. To find out more information on the artists and to grab tickets you can head to teatamira.nz/events/canvas-to-composition
