My Hands Are a City, a collaborative performance with music from Oregon State’s Wind Ensemble, student photography and poetry will be held on March 5, 7:30 p.m. at LaSells Stewart Center.
OSU students can attend the event for free, while general admission is $10.
The event is organized in collaboration with Director of Bands Erik Leung, Associate Professor of Art and Art History Julia Bradshaw and Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing Jennifer Richter.
The event will feature photography by Bradshaw’s students and poetry by Richter’s students.
In alignment with the original composition’s movements, the photography of Bradshaw’s students will be divided into thematic sections while being projected on a large screen behind the Wind Ensemble during the performance.
According to Richter, the performance is inspired by composer Jonathan Newman’s symphony of the same name, which is composed of three movements that draw inspiration from the works of beat poet Jack Kerouac and photographer Robert Frank.
“The movements of the symphony have very different tempos. The first movement, the Kerouac inspired movement, is very frenetic and fast and the music’s all over the place,” Richter said. “It slows way down in the second movement and has a kind of vastness and openness and in the third movement it ramps up and accelerates to a kind of fanfare and triumph at the end.”
Each photographer and poet was assigned an individual movement that their work will reflect and be displayed in the corresponding section of the performance.
“Part of what we’re doing is creating this cross genre collaboration and conversation that no one artist or no one art form can do by itself,” Richter said. “This is a big conversation, (these are) artists being inspired by other artists.”
Attendees will be given programs designed by graphic design student Brooke Cimino, which will include the pieces of music performed, in addition to the poems and photography by Richter and Bradshaw’s students, respectively.
“I think it lends such a wonderful legitimacy,” Richter said. ”Their work deserves to have this wider audience.”
During spring break, the Wind Ensemble will take the performance to Las Vegas, where they will present the same program, photography and poetry included. Additionally, students are writing a story that will be posted to the OSU College of Liberal Arts’ website about the collaboration.
“All of our students rose beautifully to the challenge,” Richter said. “The photos and the poems that they produced are absolutely gorgeous.”
