Abstraction in Music & Art
Sun, May 19
|Metropolitan Museum of Art
Time & Location
May 19, 2019, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1000 5th Ave, New York, NY 10028, USA
About the event
Conductor and music historian Leon Botstein discusses the parallels between Webern’s Six Pieces for Orchestra & Feldman’s Orchestra and the artwork of the Abstract Expressionists, accompanied by musical excerpts performed by The Orchestra Now and on-screen artworks. (1 hr)
Intermission (20 min)
Full performances
(10 min) Anton Webern Six Pieces for Orchestra
Morton Feldman Orchestra, NY Premiere (18 min)
Audience Q&A (10 min)
Conductor and music historian Leon Botstein explores the parallels between orchestral music and the visual arts. First, a discussion is accompanied by musical excerpts performed by The Orchestra Now and on-screen artworks. Then, a full performance and audience Q&A.Painters have often been inspired by music as the ultimate abstract art form. Musical abstraction started with the radical modernist Anton Webern, who freed the form from the conventions of late Romanticism. At the height of the abstract expressionist movement, experimental composer Morton Feldman mirrored the painters and took his inspiration from their art.Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Epic Abstraction: Pollock to Herrera on view at The Met Breuer beginning November 27, 2018.
The Orchestra Now
Leon Botstein, conductor