An exceptionally busy semester is drawing to a close for us at UNR. Along with our regular teaching loads and travel for our orchestra jobs, DeAunn and I have also been guest co-directors of L-Cubed, a weekly lunchtime concert series in the university's Knowledge Center Rotunda. Yesterday was the final concert, for which the brass quintet DeAunn coaches, the Manzanita Brass, performed Malcolm Arnold's Brass Quintet No. 1. This is a classic of the quintet repertoire, and definitely not an easy piece!
Along with their musical performance, DeAunn set up a collaboration between the Manzanita Brass and Mahsan Ghazianzad, an art student at UNR. While the quintet performed the piece, Mahsan interpreted the music and their performance live through painting. She completed a visual work of art in the span of the three movements of the work, a scant fifteen minutes - no small feat! To reach this performance took several months of discussions between the artist and musicians, contemplation, and rehearsal. The end result was a spectacular combination of aural and visual art that really engaged the performers and audience.
Below is a video of the performance; enjoy!