Art + Music is a collaboration between Kentucky College of Art + Design (KyCAD) and the Louisville Orchestra in which artists have been invited to respond to classical music pieces. I (Anthony Schrag) have been invited to respond to Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) by Modest Mussorgsky.

The concert presents an example of some excellently talented musicians and beautiful, classical works: however it also has an embedded 'politics of access' which relates to questions of who can afford to attend such concerts. It also relates to a 'hierarchy of culture' that places western, 'high art' art the centre, and other cultural expressions as less valued or less supported.

Considering the piece I have been invited to respond to - Pictures at an Exhibition - was developed after Modest Mussorgsky saw a collection of his friend's many different paintings, I wanted to replicate the idea of a 'cultural plurality'. As such, I wanted to value the different cultural expressions in Louisville (and beyond!) and so have invited artists, musicians, cultural workers, witches, gardeners, and other random citizens of to respond to exactly the same piece of music at exactly the same time as the work is being played in the concert, except for their own context and their specific audiences.

The list below illustrates the diversity of different cultural offers that are to be equally valued, supported and feted.

Western Middle School for the Arts (Louisville, Kentucky, USA) will produce a collection of collaborative performances using music, dance, visual art, and drama. Student ensembles representing these art forms will research and explore pictures at an exhibition, and determine how to create a cohesive creative response via melody, mask work/spoken word, movement, and visual symbolism. This performance piece will play to our school community on Friday 25th January at 11am.

For more info about WMS, click here

We are know as "Every Known mastermind"(E.K.M). Elijah Eke "Eknowledge" is a senior at youth performing Arts school(YPAS). T'von Terry "Karma"is a freshman at Waggener high school. Along with rapping, he is also a visual artist and his piece was the art piece you picked from 1619 Flux. Malaysia Shouse is a freshmen at Ballard high school. I met them all when they attended they attended my afterschool program at Western middle school for the Arts. We plan to take samples of the theme song  and write some lyrics to it and record us in a "Cypher" which is a Hip hop term for rapping circle. We are basically doing the project to show our version of hip hop to the world.

Bad Wires is three humans documenting the end of civilization and attempting to throw a goodbye party. Bad Wires sounds like KARP meets Motorhead meets No Means No meets Rush. A power trio. A power trio with pummeling songs rooted in post punk and noise rock, with the groove of rock n' roll, and the riffs of prog rock. A power trio with a guitar wizard who can seamlessly slip between Iron Maiden and Lightening Bolt riffs, a behemoth sludgy chord heavy bass, and a relentless slammer of a drummer. Based out of Louisville KY, Bad Wires was formed when Corey moved away from Austin TX. Having moved to Austin with his two piece MegaZilla, Corey then toured with Mark Deutrom of the Melvins for 6 years in the bands County Bucks and Bellringer. Finding himself in the bluegrass state, Corey soon met Damien of the band Mass Mutiny at a local bar and they quickly set to work on songs and riffs Corey had been sitting on. After trying out several guitar players they finally found a good fit in Conner from the band Dead Room Cult. The three spent the next 6 months deafening themselves in the smallest practice space you can imagine, finally emerging as Bad Wires.

Raise a glass and burn your effigies, the end is near

For more info about Bad Wires, click here and here

Lauren Bader in conjunction with Bird Dog and His Coyote Gosple Choir (BDCGC) will be creating an audio/visual experience to take place at Open Community Arts Center.

BDCGC is an experimental jazz/rock band based in Louisville KY. They describe themselves as a psychedelic freight train, Appalachian freedom jazz, southern revival band.

They will be performing an improvised music piece that will be accompanied by a video installation created by Lauren Bader. She is a visual artist currently working on her masters degree at the University of Louisville.

For info about Lauren, click here and for BDCGC click here

My name is Kurt Gohde and I grew up on a pig farm in Upstate New York. 18 years ago, I was diagnosed with narcolepsy. But I’ve struggled to stay awake for much longer than that. I fall sleep at faculty meetings, at stop lights (while driving), and at funerals. I am just as bad at staying awake during movies, concerts, and magic shows.

I am going to listen to Mussorgsky’s famous piece in a public space, wearing headphones—and so isolated from anyone else who might be around. In this way, my experience of it will be exactly what it would be like if I were sitting in a music hall, surrounded by others in the audience. Just as I would in a music hall, I will be struggling to stay awake.

This, then, will be my engagement with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition: struggling to stay awake while knowing people are looking at me and perhaps judging me for falling asleep.

For more info about Kurt, click here or here

My name is Kremena Todorova and I was born in Bulgaria exactly 100 years after Mussorgsky wrote Pictures at an Exhibition. Growing up in a Communist country which enthusiastically invested in its citizens’ literacy and culture, I frequently went to see theater and hear classical music, either with my mother or with my classmates. Because Pictures at an Exhibition sounds very familiar and because I rarely go to classical music concerts in the United States, I have to assume that one of the pieces I heard as a child sitting in the grand opera house in my hometown was Mussorgsky’s famous piano composition.

All these years later and thousands of miles away from my hometown, I am going to engage with Mussorgsky’s piece in a way neither Communism nor my mother would approve of: I am going to go for a run while listening to it. I am going to run because running for me is invigorating, humbling, satisfying, and tiring. Classical music, when I listen to it, is most of these things, too. But, to be honest, I mostly enjoy the thought of combining high art and everyday exercise. This will be the first time I will run with headphones on. I hope I don’t run into a tree.

For more info about Kremena, click here or here

This is the original 'Honk Your Fumpet' orchestra, and are to be credited with coming up with title of the whole work.

These are two amazing, creative children with 0% training but 100% joy. They will be aiming to perform 'Paintings at an Exhibition' on a Bass Recorder handed-down from their Uncle, and some up-turned pastic pots as precussion.

Their parents will be filming, with earplugs shoved tight in and a big smile.

Pam Johnston lives in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. She is a integral part of the Huntly Summer School that specialises in teaching music in groups to children and adults. It teaches without music, by ear and in a fun, relaxed and nurturing environment. Pam is also a keen member of a variety of Scottish folk music groups. She will be playing the fiddle to her chickens.

For more info about the Huntly Summer School, click here

The Williamson Family live in the shadow of Tap 'o North, deep in the territory of the ancient Picts of Scotland. They are all artists and musicians and will be interpreting Pictures at an Exhibition on a variety of instruments. If it is a clear night, they will open the curtain and maybe see the Northern Lights. If its raining, they will play to the puddles.

As part of the Art + Music event, the Louisville Orchestra will be performing the work Pictures at an Exhibition (1874) by Modest Mussorgsky.

In 1868, influential painter Viktor Hartmann gave Mussorgsky two paintings that inspired the musician to begin scoring the work that later became Pictures at an Exhibition. Hartmann and Mussorgsky’s friendship was intense and they had a profound impact on each other’s life for the short time they knew each other. Indeed, Hartmann’s early death plunged Mussorgsky into such an extreme depression to the extent that it impacted his work’s timbre and expression. 

It was only when all Hartmann’s paintings were shown together in an exhibition (including the two works that he had given Mussorgsky), that the musician was revived from his depression. It was in seeing the variety and quality of his friend’s paintings together that inspired Mussorgsky to return to Pictures at an Exhibition and rewrite it. He feverishly wrote the entire score in three weeks, with each of the ten numbers of the suite serving as a musical illustration of an individual work by Hartmann. 

This idea of gaining inspiration from other, different types of artistic expression is at the core of my contribution to this concert, as expressed by the diversity of other people performing this song at exactly the same moment around the world.

For more info about the Louisville Orchesta, click here

Squallis will be inviting friends to engage with puppets while listening to Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. Our actions will be focused on creating an impromptu and playful response to the composition, in real-time. The resulting local art happening will be live-streamed on social media.

Our mission is to use the art of puppetry to free imaginations, create fantastic characters, and to tell the stories that are important to our community.

We help kids and adults imagine what is possible, create new worlds, and uncover the stories we all have to tell. Our puppets are handmade using everyday materials, demonstrating that creativity and innovation are always within reach. Squallis is recognized as a positive and important part of the Louisville community, telling stories that challenge viewers to think, while reflecting values of citizenship, empathy and collaboration

For more info about Squallis, click here

My name is Joyce Ogden. As a visual artist, my work explores the human relationship to nature and deals most directly with the very substance of the land.

I live on 3.5 acres in Southern Indiana. For the past 10 years I have come to know and care for this piece of land. There are woods, fields, many plants, deer, coyote, rabbits, owls and hawks, not to mention all the fungi, insects and microorganisms that I can’t see. I grow fruit, berries and vegetables and keep chickens for eggs. This place: the landscape, the cycles of the seasons, the growing and dying of plants and animals, and my cultivation of the land inform me as a person and visual artist.  

Living on the land and caring for a piece of earth is an endless process of listening, watching and learning: it is a reciprocal exchange and a fundamental human ritual. I will be outside playing Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition to the landscape.

For more info about Joyce, click here

Louisville Grows is an organization who aims to grow sustainable communities in Louisville, Kentucky through urban agriculture and urban forestry.  In honor of the origins and inspiration another Mussorgsky work Night on Bald Mountain, which included a pagan celebration of the solstice, folks at Louisville Grows will invite members of the community into Healthy House to meditate on, celebrate, and welcome the return of the sun for the 2019 growing season.  This will include readings, music, and planting seeds, and will kick off the 2019 agriculture programs.

For more info about Louisville Grows, click here