“In his most famously evocative work, Pictures at an Exhibition, the great 19th-century Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky depicted foreboding catacombs, a skittish ballet of unhatched chicks, and quarreling children,” writes Peter Dobrin in Tuesday’s (5/9) Philadelphia Inquirer. “For a new Pictures at an Exhibition, Dirk Brossé [music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia] cast his eye locally, taking a tour of the Philadelphia Museum of Art with museum director Timothy Rub,” and selecting seven artworks. “Brossé didn’t set out to choose works and artists that have Philadelphia connections, but it ended up that many do. Thomas Eakins and Edward Hicks are celebrated local sons. Perhaps less known is that Man Ray was born in Philadelphia, and although Thomas Moran painted the golden vistas of the West, he started his career … as a journeyman Philadelphia engraver…. Photographs of the paintings will be projected onto a screen as the chamber orchestra plays each movement.” Artworks include Eakins’s The Gross Clinic, Moran’s Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, Edward Hicks’s The Peaceable Kingdom, Winslow Homer’s In The Life Line, Man Ray’s Fair Weather, and an untitled Rothko painting. The orchestra performs the score on May 14 and 15 at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center.
Posted May 15, 2017
