SANTA BARBARA — At the invitation of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA), Awol Erizku, a noted photographer, sculptor, and painter and subject of a recent New Yorker profile, is collaborating with nine 2023 fellows at the Music Academy of Santa Barbara to plan a memorable one-night-only performance on July 23, that will bridge visual art and classical music.
Awol Erizku, No Hesi, 2022. Spray paint, regulation size basketball hoops and metal chains on printed aluminum.SBMA, Museum purchase with funds provided from Kandy Budgor, Luria/Budgor Family Foundation. © Awol Erizku.
Erizku is a natural choice for Radiant Frequencies project because music threads through his unusually varied and impossible to easily package practice. Nefertiti—Miles Davis Gold (2022) is a gold mirrored mosaic in the form of the ancient Egyptian queen, which also references Miles Davis’s album Nefertiti (1968). Moreover, the artist says that No Hesi(2022), from his new Cosmic Drill series, relates to Drill, a genre of hip hop. Both artworks are in the Museum’s collection and are currently on display. He is also widely known for his photographs of musicians, including Beyoncé, Nipsey Hussle, J-Cole and Bad Bunny.
Erizku is an enthusiastic collaborator. “I’m a firm believer,” he said, “in the fact that the cross pollination of different disciplines leads to the most exciting and complex of ideas. Working with the Music Academy fellows has been very fruitful, and I look forward to completing the loop with the Audience once we go live.” The fellows were particularly taken with No Hesi and its aspirational imagery that combines galaxies, traces of erased graffiti markings, and florescent basketball hoops, what Erizku calls his“Afro-esotercism,” a referencing of Black and African diasporic cultures. The artist and musicians settled on keywords—participation, chance, atmosphere, and cosmic abstractions—that captured the affinities of Erizku’s art and broad concepts to shape the program.
Erizku and fellows meet, Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, June 16, 2023.
Participation and chance are represented by Pauline Oliveros’ The Tuning Meditation (1971), a set of instructions that begin by telling the musicians and the audience to pick a tone in their head and play it, creating an unpredictable sound. Atmosphere is captured by Erwin Schulhoff’s String Quartet No. 1 (1924) and its atmospheric layering of multiple simultaneous advanced techniques. Cosmic abstraction, as in vastness and spirituality, enters through Reena Esmail’s The Light is the Same (2021), a wind quintet whose title comes from a poem by the Persian mystic Rumi (1207-1273 CE), and also Inti Figgis-Vizueta’s string quartetMayu (The Great River) (2021). Figgis-Vizueta’s composition draws on their Andean heritage: Mayu (The Milky Way) is the source of all water for Andean people. Also, Radiant Frequencies will be the world-premiere of an arrangement of Beyoncé’s hit “Halo” from I am…Sasha Fierce (2008), rewritten for a nonet of strings and winds. A song about emotional connection, awakening, and redemption, it centers on a vision of a halo, a blazing ring of ethereal light and a sign of holiness, which combinesatmosphere and cosmic abstraction.
Awol Erizku, Photo: Michael Tyrone Delaney
Fellows and Academy administration came to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art to see artworks by Erizku and others in the exhibition, Inside/Outside(June 11, 2023-February 18, 2024). James Glisson, Curator of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, facilitated a discussion as the musicians thought about how visual artists like Ilana Savdie, Narsiso Martinez, and Rose Salane, all currently on view, might stretch and break the boundary of performance and work against a medium, whether painting or a string quartet. Glisson remarks, “These visual artists take the familiar—say disco balls and basketball hoops, for Awol; agricultural produce boxes for Martinez; and the bright confetti colors for Savdie—and then upend their everyday associations.” Working against expectations appealed to the fellows. Oboist Kara Poling realized the potential of “empty spaces in artworks,” either as an analogy for rests in music or an awareness of what passes unnoticed. Flutist Arin Sarkissian observed: “All of these artists are creating art through unconventional mediums, synthesizing opposites into coherence, lacing modern styles with diasporic identity, and carving out space for underrepresented voices.”
Erizku’s openness energized the musicians. “The Music Academy’s partnership with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art has offered our fellows a rare opportunity to collaborate with a world-class artist, use visual art as a catalyst for innovative musical programming, and curate a wonderfully diverse program spanning multiple musical genres and backgrounds,” shares Brandon Linhard, Chamber Music Specialist at the Music Academy. Clarinet fellow Besnik Abrashi say we can make “something new for the audience and ourselves.” Others echo this sentiment. “Music thrives off of collaboration,” says violist Molly Prow. Violinist Na Hyun Della Kyun adds this is “unlike any other project that I have ever experienced.”
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s growing program in contemporary art is committed to a diverse and relevant presentation that promotes discussion and dialogue. In recent years, it has added works by the likes of Awol Erizku, Daniel Lind-Ramos, Mary Kelly, Genevieve Gaignard, Forrest Kirk, Marshall Brown, Dawoud Bey, and Narsiso Martinez to the collection.Radiant Frequencies is but one facet of SBMA’s broadening contemporary program, and it is also first event for BEYOND CONVERSATION, a series of programs that use contemporary art and artists to spark debate and provoke dialogue.
Every summer, the Music Academy selects 137 young, classically trained musicians from an international audition process to study and perform in Santa Barbara on a full scholarship for their eight-week school and Festival. The Music Academy admits music students and professionals from the top conservatories and ensembles around the world, and this year’s fellows come to Santa Barbara from four different continents. Radiant Frequencies is an opportunity for these emerging musicians to program and explore how collaboration can connect with wider audiences.
About Santa Barbara Museum of Art
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is one of the finest museums on the West coast and is celebrated for the superb quality of its permanent collection. Its mission is to integrate art into the lives of people through internationally recognized exhibitions and special programs, as well as the thoughtful presentation of its permanent collection.
About the Music Academy
Located in Santa Barbara, the Music Academy creates a space where exceptional talent can thrive by encouraging artists to stretch, experiment, improvise, and play. The Academy gives artists the tools they need to become not just great musicians but great leaders. With the sun shining brightly on possibility and potential, the Academy unleashes the creators who will reimagine the future of classical music and catalyzes the change that will propel classically trained musicians boldly forward. The Music Academy’s year round programs are: Sing!, a children’s choir free of charge for all participants that performs with local, national, and international partners; the annual Summer Festival for 137 fellows with more than 120 performances and events, Solo Piano, Duo, Fast Pitch, and Marilyn Horne Song Competitions; the Keston MAX partnership with the London Symphony Orchestra; the Innovation Institute’s Alumni Enterprise Awards; and the new Mariposa Series of concerts by Academy-affiliated artists. For more information, visit musicacademy.org.
2023 Music Academy fellows participating in Radiant Frequencies are Arin Sarkissian, flute; Kara Poling, oboe;
Besnik Abrashi, clarinet; Sarah Bobrow, bassoon; Alessandra Liebmann, horn;Freya Liu, violin; Na Hyun Della Kyun, violin; Molly Prow, viola; and Jiho Seo, cello.
Radiant Frequencies is underwritten by Kandy Budgor, Luria/Budgor Family Foundation.
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