Along with its role as a home for the visual arts, how might the Johnson Museum’s unique I. M. Pei building inspire musical compositions? Join us for this special opportunity to hear keyboard performances by Doctor of Music Arts–Composition student composers, inspired by the building’s architecture, light, and environment—as well as the sound of an original 1865 Broadwood piano from the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards—as a point of departure. Asher Wulfman, Jack Yarbrough, Ariel Mo, and Federico Ercoli will perform in the Hirsch Lecture Lobby on Floor 2L, located next to the Morgan Japanese Garden.

Cosponsored by the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards, this free event is open to all.

Program notes from the composers

Chenghao Michaelis Li, Inchiostro di Brina
The juxtaposition of paintings by Wassily Kandinsky and Zao Wou-Ki creates a parallel to the confluence of Eastern and Western musical aesthetics and the tonal possibilities of the fortepiano to create a sonic landscape that bridges the spirit of these artworks with the architectural space of the Johnson Museum.

James Parker, Rings in Relief
A dense, slowly evolving soundscape built on layers of live recorded piano tones, inspired by the living concrete textures of the interior walls of the Johnson Museum.

María Bulla, a box of songs
Imagining the sounds produced by the whistles in the pre-Columbian collection at the Johnson Museum, a box of songs celebrates the little sounds that we make with our hands. All these years later, and we are still here making noise.

Seare Ahmad Farhat, wild eyes that gleam of past existence
This new work for violin and piano interprets the concrete walls of the Johnson Museum as inscriptions of sound. Each fragment of the Johnson’s exterior framework is a unique mold of wooden frames—in much the same way, wild eyes seeks to translate a material impression of the wall itself into sound.