UA STUDENTS INSPIRED BY ANTHONY BRAXTON FUSE ART & MUSIC

University of Alabama art students will exhibit works inspired by the music of renowned jazz composer and musician Anthony Braxton Feb. 6-27 at The University of Alabama Gallery in the Dinah Washington Cultural Arts Center in downtown Tuscaloosa. The exhibit, “Anthony Braxton: Falling River Music Exhibition,” coincides with Braxton’s weeklong residency at UA Feb. 18-25.
An opening reception and concert will be held Friday, Feb. 6 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the gallery. A closing reception and concert will be held Monday, Feb. 23 from 6-8 p.m. at the gallery. Students in Assistant Professor Pete Schulte’s advanced concepts in drawing class will exhibit works inspired by the musical scores and audio works of Braxton. Ausharea Adams, Mitchell Griest, Brittany Gunnells, Ali Hval, Patrick O’Brien, Jennifer Ocampo and Seth Saunders also curated the exhibition.
Braxton’s musical career spans more than five decades. His many awards include a MacArthur fellowship, Guggenheim fellowship, 2009 honorary doctorate from the Université de Liège in Belgium, 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and 2013 New Music USA Letter of Distinction. He is also a 2014 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master. “Falling River Music is the name of a new structural prototype class of compositions in my music system that will seek to explore image logic construct ‘paintings’ as the score’s extract music notation,” Braxton writes about his current work. These scores consist of large, colorful drawings (reminiscent of the titles of Braxton’s earlier compositions) alongside other notational symbols.
The students created artworks in response to Braxton’s work. “Each of us has taken on one of Anthony Braxton’s unique visual scores and one of his auditory compositions and are in the process of making work in response to it,” said Mitchell Griest, a junior from Brighton, Michigan double majoring in computer science and studio art and minoring in math. “We are considering his larger body of work as well, but paying special attention to the pieces we were assigned individually as jumping off points.” For the curating process, the students selected 35 of Braxton’s visual scores to show alongside their own works.
The exhibit and weeklong residency are sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and The University of Alabama’s New College, College of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Provost, School of Music, jazz studies program, Blount Undergraduate Initiative, Honors College, University Programs and departments of American studies and gender and race studies. For a full schedule of Braxton’s weeklong residency at UA, visit http://www.sonicfrontiers.ua.edu.