Music and art go hand in hand. And what better pairing for Tara Donovan’s ‘extraordinary’ art than a performance by percussionist Nick Hennies?

This Saturday, you can experience the sounds Nick Hennies as he performs music from his forthcoming album, Psalms, as well as Objects, a new work dedicated to the exhibition Tara Donovan: Untitled and composed especially for this installation.

Drawing connections to Donovan’s work, Hennies’ piece makes seemingly familiar sounds become strange and new.

Check out one of Nick’s performances below:

New Sound Facilities #1 – Nick Hennies & Sandy Ewen from You and Yours on Vimeo.

Filed under: Art, Current Events, Exhibitions, Public Programs

What happens at the intersection of music and art? Composer Jim Beckel has a pretty good idea.  A few months ago, we decided to join forces with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra to create a short video.

Behind the scenes shot of Dan filming the horn section's rehearsal

And we couldn’t have asked for better subject matter. ISO Principal Trombone (and composer) Jim Beckel’s, In the Mind’s Eye, Images for Horns and Orchestra features the five members of the ISO Horn Section and is inspired by paintings from the collections of the IMA.

The video speaks for itself, I think (watch it below)…an extraordinary partnership between two Indianapolis cultural institutions. You can see the performance in person May 14-15 at the Hilbert Circle Theater.

Filed under: Art, Current Events, New Media

This post was written by Ben Masbaum, New Media intern.

Ben Masbaum

With this being my first blog for the IMA, I implore you to scroll away if you consider yourself one of those people who doesn’t particularly hold noobies in high regard. If you’ve stuck around, allow me to share a few thoughts on music videos as an art form.

I remember sitting in my living room when I was thirteen years old: voice cracking, flannel shirt around my waist with my combat boots on the coffee table and my mother urging me to wash my hair.  I couldn’t, of course, because I was busy watching MTV, pre-Real World and before the internet we know of today.  I would stare the wild camera effects of the music videos and think to myself, “Wow!  I love this!” It seemed easy to do and I wanted to be a part of it.

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Filed under: Guest Bloggers, Musings, New Media

Last Sunday, The Toby overflowed with thirsty fans lapping up the sounds of edgy string quartet Osso and Bloomington-based songster DM Stith, with his sweet voice and dark ideas. They also couldn’t stop watching The BQE, the first film by musician Sufjan Stevens, who jammed the screen with a triptych of imagery in homage to a crazy traffic artery in New York called the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. I had to be the one to stand at the Toby doors and turn people away for this sold-out show – I hated doing so and was very bad at it.

A full house (Photo by IMA Photography Dept.)

Osso (Photo by IMA Photography Dept.)

DM Stith and Osso (Photo by IMA Photography Dept.)

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Filed under: Current Events, Public Programs, The Toby

Have you ever visualized a song while listening? On my drive in this morning, I heard “Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)” by Styx, and was inspired to write about this topic today. In “Fooling Yourself”, there are two punchy synthesizer solos that dance up and down the scale with a rather unique rhythm. It’s the sort of melody that my mind can’t help playing with visually on the projector in the back of my brain (luckily the screen doesn’t obscure my view of the road).

The iTunes visualizer

I’m pretty sure that how one visualizes a song varies from person to person and song to song. My best evidence for this comes from my experience as part of Sounds and Visions, a computer music and graphics concert put on by the UIUC chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Unfortunately, the web was young back then and we didn’t put much material online. But you can think of it as a zanily creative iTunes visualizer. My contribution was a dancing solar system with a sun that pulsed to the beat and planets excited by notes of various frequencies. Others showcased flocks of birds, a carpet of tiles bouncing little cubes into the air, only to be eaten by alligator-like creatures, and quivering leaf-like fractals.

I just realized that I have no idea where I’m going with this post… maybe I’ll just end it with a question… what other visual expressions of music have you seen?

Filed under: Musings, Technology