Adam Schoenberg’s Picture Studies In a modern version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, where he walks around an exhibition of his friend Viktor Hartmann’s paintings, American composer Adam Schoenberg (b. 1980) created his own tour around the Nelson-Atkins Museum

Inspirations Behind Tracy Silverman’s Between the Kiss and the Chaos Created initially as music for five scenes from a puppet opera, composer and electric violinist Tracy Silverman combined the idea of creation in the arts with his ideas of how

Eric Montalbetti’s Trio Inspired by Suprematism, Orphism, and Futurism French composer Eric Montalbetti (b. 1968) designed his Trio for violin, cello, and piano around three modernist artistic styles: Suprematism, Orphism, and Futurism. Suprematism was developed by the Soviet artist Kazimir

The medium of the Prelude has been used by composers for a number of different vehicles. At first, they were literally the music that came before, i.e., preceded another piece. The first one dates from 1448. Then, they were used

Inspirations Behind Jake Heggie’s Statuesque American composer Jake Heggie (b. 1961) looked at the statues of five women and wrote his song cycle Statuesque in their honour. He worked with Gene Scheer, an American songwriter, librettist, and lyricist who had

Virko Baley: Sculptured Birds For his work for clarinet and piano, Sculptured Birds, Ukrainian-American composer Virko Baley (b 1938) chose four modern artists for his four movements, beginning in 1978 and continuing in 1982 through 1984. The Sculptured Birds suite

Jessica Krash: Be Seeing You American composer Jessica Krash was commissioned by two Washington DC arts institutions, the National Gallery of Art and The National Museum of Women in the Arts to create a work based on 14 works of

Michael Daugherty: Mount Rushmore It looms over the Black Hills of South Dakota: a massive sculpture carved into the face of Mount Rushmore, which stands a massive 60 feet (18m) high. The heads of four presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson,