Melody Unchained: Pop Music through the Ages

When RISD curator Dominic Molon and CMW Resident Musician Chase Spruill first met to talk about a potential musical collaboration that could temporarily live inside the contemporary exhibit “When Now is Night” by Martin Boyce, there were striking and immediate similarities of approach and aesthetic.  Visually, Boyce has spent a career not only reimagining and recreating natural forms that surround our everyday life, but has also been inspired by the work of other artists such as Saul Bass, who so effectively captured the spirit of anxiety and fear in a big city, and the sense of being lost in the “cage” of the grid for the opening title sequence of the film North by Northwest.

As the movie industry and the recording industry began to take prominence in the early-to-mid 20th century, a distinct musical language began to emerge alongside increasingly more evocative visual mediums.  But the practices and inspirations of the composers and musicians who’ve produced and created the language of today’s music in film, music in television, and even what we hear on the radio, might be connected to a single event which took place in 16th century Europe.

Join us for a series of intimate and intensive special events that explore the work of Martin Boyce which culminates into a parallel concert experience designed to trace the roots, aesthetics and rise of popular music with an experimental program comprising over 300 years of music history.

Program:

John Bull: Variations on “Walsingham” for solo harpsichord

Arnold Schoenberg: String Quartet no.2

Alex North: Unchained Melody

Michael Nyman: String Quartet no.1 and music from “Drowning by Numbers”

–Chase Spruill (Resident Musician)

All events take place at the RISD Museum

Thursday, December 10 at 5:00pm 
Gallery talk with Dominic Molon, RISD curator and Chase Spruill
Free with museum admission