Musical Performance Analysis

One pleasant afternoon, my classmates and I decided to visit the Houston Museum of Fine Arts to begin on our museum assignment in world literature class. According to Houston Museum of Fine Art’s staff, MFAH considers as one of the largest museums in the nation and it contains many variety forms of art with more than several thousand years of unique history. Also, I have never been in a museum in a very long time especially as big as MFAH, and my experience about the museum was unique and pleasant. Although I have observed many great types and forms of art in the museum, there were few that interested me the most.

During our visit to the El Paso Museum of Art, our docent (insert name) took us on a tour of their current exhibitions: Robert Delaunay and Albert Gleizes: The School of Paris from Modern Master Series: Highlights from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Immaculate Conception, Amplified Abstraction, and Modern Stone Totems. In addition to our expedition we observed art of Mexico and New Spain that showcased 17th and 19th century paintings and sculptures. European art with includes paintings and sculptures from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. As well as, early American art from the 19th century to the mid 20th century.

The exhibit I observed was the Michael Brown and Lesley McSpadden art piece. This particular piece stood out to me once I took a glance into her eyes and saw pain. The artist of the exhibit was Aaron Fowlers he was born in 1988 in St. Louis where the tragic event took place, but currently lives and works in Harlem, NY. Aaron Fowlers installation describes the eulogy that Michael Brown mother delivered for her son which whom was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, MO. This piece was made from using mix media and a variety of cool colors.

On Thursday March 22nd, I visited the Laguna Art Museum with my boyfriend. I was very excited for this assignment because I am a member at the Laguna art museum, but didn’t yet see the new exhibit for this season. The Laguna Art Museum is small and therefore, usually runs exhibits on one artist at the time. I knew I would more than likely only be able to pick art pieces from one artist. At this time, they were displaying a local artist, Tony DeLap, and work from his collection titled, “Retrospective”. My expectation was that I probably wouldn’t enjoy his work too much. I knew DeLap was a minimalist, “op artist”, and that style of work isn’t my favorite, typically I enjoy realist paintings. However, I decided that I should try and analyze art

This past Friday, I attended an art exhibition at the Memphis College of Art where I saw great paintings from Meghann Riepenhoff, along with Tim Andrews. The show consisted of both their paintings in separate sections, they were the only two artist. Personally, I’d say the show combined did not have a theme, but as separate it did. When I first stepped in the building, I was welcomed by greeters, the event coordinator and Riepenhoff’s paintings. Her painting’s made me think the overall event theme was about the beach and waves, but that was not the case. While I continued walking and observing the painting’s I was greeted into Mr. Andrews’s exhibit, which consisted of self-portraits. Both artist having paintings placed in the same space didn’t take away from one another’s paintings.

Whenever a performer faces a piano on stage, a battle between David and Goliath ensues, but when that performer is me, everyone listening expects David to overcome all odds and win. While the audience expects my performance to run like a set of perfectly-oiled gears, a small defect in the millions of pieces and parts that make up a performance--piano, distractions, lighting, piano bench, audience, and more--could cause absolute disaster. As I walked onto a brightly lit stage five years ago for my first piano competition and faced the Steinway grand piano in the center of the spotlight, I didn’t know what the next ten minutes of my life would be like. Never in my six years of playing the piano had I ever played under such immense pressure.

Asses Tod - Play this piece with an appropriate dark ensemble tone color, and a wide dynamic range is required from the performers.

On September 4, 2016, I visited the Matisse in His Time exhibit at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. This exhibit is home to a plethora of pieces by many different European artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. While it is focused on Matisse and his extensive works, containing more than 50 of his pieces, there are many portraits and sculptures by other influential artists from that time period including Renoir, Picasso, and Georges Braque. Three of the most appealing works that I encountered in this exhibit are Maurice de Vlaminck’s Portrait of Père Bouju, Pablo Picasso’s Reclining Woman on a Blue Divan, and Henri Matisse’s sculpture series Henriette I, Henriette II, and Henriette III.

The Sound of Music is an old tale that ran its first show in 1959. This play was shown at the Belk Theater at the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center. It included two acts with a twenty minutes intermission between the two acts. The Sound of Music is a musical that has music by Richard Rodgers. The play follows Maria von Trapp’s life, it starts with her life at an Abbey trying to join the monastic life. The nuns from the Abbey do not feel that she is quite ready for the monastic life because of how much she likes to sing. There are strict rules that each person must follow in the Abbey. The nuns tell Maria that she is going to become a governess for the von Trapp family. The play then goes to show the relationships that Maria forms with the children and the Captain. The Captain is not home very often, but one time he is he brings home, Elsa and Max. Elsa is planned to be the Captain’s new wife, however, that is not what ends up happening. Maria and the Captain get married and the play ends with the family fleeing from the Nazi. This play is based on a memoir of Maria. Although the play is based on Maria’s life there were some events that did not occur in Maria’s life that is in the play. For instance, the family didn’t actually flee Nazi oppression right after the annexation of Austria; rather they relocated to the United States in the 1940s.

The two works of art that I have chosen to analyze are 1) Jordan Casteel. Miles and JoJo. 2014. Oil on canvas, 54” x 72” and 2) Aaron Fowler. He Was. 2015. Mixed media, 134” x 165” x 108”. The themes that these works of art represent in regards to the exhibit are love, family, and pain. However, they also fall into other thematic categories. The main theme that seems to apply to both “Miles and JoJo” and “He Was” is Human Experience. Additionally, these arts differ in some ways.

The Washburn University Department of Music was honored to host two solo vocal artists. The guest artists were Dr. Anthony Radford of California State University, Fresno and Dr. Andrea Garritano of Washburn University. Each artist had their own type of voice range. Dr. Anthony Radford’s voice range was baritone, meaning that he has a voice of medium compass between bass and tenor. Dr. Andre Garritano voice range was soprano meaning she has the highest female singing voice. The musical instrument that was played along with the solo singer was the piano, which was played by Patricia Gibson. The piano is apart of the percussion instrumental group. For any instrumental group the smaller the instrument the higher the pitches are.

Brian Eno said that the recording studio “takes music out of time dimension and puts it in the space dimension”. Eno describes that the recording studio has opened a new world of music- a world in which the listener can listen to a performance over and over again. Prior to the use of the studio, listeners could only listen to a performance once when it is performed live, so this opens new doors for listeners. Listeners now have the ability with studio recordings to “listen again and again to a performance, to become familiar with details you most certainly had missed the first time though, and to become very fond of details that weren’t intended by the composer or the musicians” (Eno, p. 127). Therefore, this creates a new relationship between

As the music teacher, it is an honor and a privilege to teach music to all the students at Pelican Marsh Elementary. Students at Pelican Marsh receive 50 minutes of music instruction once per week from Kindergarten through fifth grade. Musical Performance is a significant part of the musical experience at PME and each child will participate in a grade level performance each year. During music class, students will sing, play instruments and do some movement. The instruments for the intermediate grades are the following: guitar, violin, keyboards, and harp. Each child in grades 3-5 will be learning to play each of these instruments. Many of our students go on to middle school participating in band, chorus, or orchestra!

The second vocal ensemble of the night started out with a song which included a twelve bar blues, called “ I use to know you”. This performance consisted of the most combinations of solos of the night as well as using an improvising style. The entire band started all together which led to a Trumpet solo. Then Jose on the Sax did his solo followed by the pianist comping. Then the choir along with the band joined together to lead to a female solo which was particularly interesting since she was scatting. The second performance of this ensemble was “Spring can really hang you up the most” which consisted of 3/4 time and 4/4 time. This started with a female solo vocalist then a male one. The band as a whole played together and ended with a male solo scatting. The third and shortest performance of the night was a vocal acapella piece, “Love walked in” which was short and sweet. The fourth performance of the night was a Richmond Rogers piece. This had a rhythmic swing/salsa feel from the “Lady is a tramp”. This started with the rhythm section, with the male vocalist and horns. Then the female vocalist from the choir joined and concluded this piece. The fifth performance for the group was a sequel to voice stand an acapella piece by Greg Jaspers. This song started with the choir using their voices as the instruments altogether. The final performance of the night was one of

     The art exhibit was in the Gordon Hightower Library. The exhibit was on Thursday, April 10, 2002 and lasted all day long and is still going on. There were not many paintings, but the two main painters were Marlin Adams and R. Defamore. Adams painted portraits of fruit and people. Defamore painted a series of paintings that were all similar but very different and dark such as “The Victim- Talking Hand and Screaming Heads” and “The Hero-To Tell Or Not To Tell”.