Art-Poem-Music : Sirarpi Heghinian Walzer, artist
Elizabeth Kirschner, poet
Pamela J. Marshall, composer
Press Release January 15, 2008
Contact: Pamela Marshall pmarshall [ at ] spindrift.com
Art-Poem-Music: Body and Soul, creating new art in Lexington
The Art-Poem-Music project presents its first concert on Friday February 2 at 7:30pm at the Depot Square Gallery in Lexington.
A full-circle collaboration
Art-Poem-Music is a full-circle collaborative project between three women artists: Pamela Marshall, composer, Elizabeth Kirschner, poet and artist Sirarpi Heghinian-Walzer. Art-Poem-Music includes a solo art exhibition by Walzer for the month of February and a concert of songs inspired by Walzer’s art. Walzer’s art exhibition, the set of poems by Kirschner, and the song cycle by Marshall are all titled Body and Soul. Through the shared inspiration of the three artists, art merges with poems that merge with music.
Kirschner was deeply moved by Walzer’s powerful imagery and wrote poems out of that deep stimulation. Walzer created new art work inspired from the poems. Marshall lived with both the poems and art as she found the music that fit the poems and art. For the artists, the thread running through all the work—Art-Poem-Music—is a vibrant one, vital and alive.
Songs with string trio
The concert on February 2 will present six songs from the set of 22 poems: “Touch and Believe,” “Grace,” “Each Stitch,” “Shattered Sunflowers,” “Death Drums” and “The Grief Tree.” Both Walzer’s dramatic art and Kirscher’s poems freely combine human and nature imagery. The poems organically combine images of death and sadness with transformation and transcendence and a remaking of oneself, ideas and images that came to Kirschner as she studied Walzer’s paintings and collages. At first, Marshall thought to treat the poems literally, thinking particularly that the references to death and grief required a mournful music. Then she gradually began to see the imagery as a continuum of existence so that the music reflects the feeling of a transformative journey.
Performers
The concert will highlight the beautifully expressive voice of mezzo-soprano Miranda Loud. In her recent appearance with the Vox Consort, the Boston Globe praised her performance as “achieving maximum poignancy” and Forrest Pierce wrote of her recording of his songs “your voice is a dream voice for a composer of mezzo songs. Clear, crystalline, agile, with riveting American diction.” The songs are accompanied by string trio – violin, viola, and cello, with musicians Melissa Howe of Lexington, Ken Stalberg of Belmont, and Joan Esch of Concord. (Note: Ken Stahlberg had a skiing accident before the first rehearsal, and he was replaced by Joan Ellersick.)
After the concert the Art-Poem-Music collaboration will continue. Walzer and Kirschner hope to make a book of the 22 poems while Marshall plans to set all the poems to music and produce a CD.
Concert details
The concert Art-Poem-Music: Body and Soul takes place Friday February 2, 2007 at 7:30pm at the Depot Square Gallery, 1837 Mass. Ave., Lexington, MA 02420. Tickets are $15, available by advance purchase by calling the Gallery at 781-863-1597. Walzer’s solo exhibition Body and Soul will be on display at the Depot Square Gallery from January 30 through February 25, 2007.
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About the Art-Poem-Music project
About artist Sirarpi Heghinian-Walzer
About poet Elizabeth Kirschner
