Sight and Sound

Sight and Sound returns to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts on Wednesday, October 28, with new music from the University Composer's Collective. The program is part of the museum's ongoing series that pairs music with its exhibitions, bringing in local musicians and composers to create cross-modal encounters between the visual and performing arts. This time, the music comes from the Collective, a student-run organization at the University of Utah that creates performance and professional-development opportunities for emerging composers, advised by Dr. Jessica Rudman and Dr. Miguel Chuaqui.

The evening's compositions were inspired by the special exhibition For the Future: Collecting at the UMFA 2001-2026, and they'll be performed live by the Student Opera Guild, a student-led group that supports aspiring opera singers at the School of Music under the guidance of Professor James Bobick. Two composers from the Collective are featured: Caleb Martin, a Utah-based composer known for his vocal writing, wrote the sister works At Last! and At Rest, which take their cue from Tacita Dean's JG (offset). Sadie Olsen, who writes for classical voice and opera, wrote Apollo and Hyacinthus, drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Between the two, you'll get a look at how different composers respond to the same exhibition. Martin's pieces are a pair, At Last! and At Rest, while Olsen's Apollo and Hyacinthus pulls from classical mythology. Both are written for the voice, so the Student Opera Guild will be singing these new works live in the gallery rather than you just hearing a recording. It's a good chance to see how the museum's current collection is being translated into music by students from the university just down the road.

It all happens at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, in the Marcia & John Price Museum Building at 410 Campus Center Dr, Salt Lake City, UT 84112. The performance runs from 6 PM to 7 PM on Wednesday, October 28, and admission is free.