Brooklyn Philharmonic at the Brooklyn Museum
Theodore Wiprud created Music Off The Walls for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, when the Brooklyn Museum invited the orchestra to program chamber concerts in relation to current exhibitions. For five seasons, first on staff and then as a consultant, Wiprud crafted and hosted imaginative musical responses to visual artworks. He plotted projections from exhibitions to accompany live performance in the Cantor Auditorium of the Museum, Sunday afternoons at 3.
2007 Season
January 21
Subliminal Muse
In conjunction with the exhibition “Walton Ford: Works on Paper,” watercolors of birds with sometimes violent imagery and social commentary
Birds are singing sweetly, but what is going on in the background? Music works on many levels, which may or may not work together as expected, and a skillful composition can even satirize its own subject. Explore how composers get their underlying point across. Featuring Vivaldi’s “Spring” from The Four Seasons, answered by music of Ives, Musorgsky, and Randy Woolf.
March 25
Feminism in Music?
In conjunction with the exhibition “Global Feminism” and the grand opening of the Elizabeth A.Sackler Center for Feminist Arts
In the world of concert music, women have quietly assumed leading positions. Do they bring a new perspective to their musical traditions? Join us to sample works from the 1980s (when feminist musicology emerged) to the present, and discover the women who are shaping the future of music. Featuring music of Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Janika Vandervelde, Chen Yi, Augusta Read Thomas, and Tania Leon.
April 29
American Identities
In conjunction with the permanent exhibition “American Identities”
For over a century, American music like American art has shown twin impulses: proudly unschooled individualism versus European-trained internationalism. Sample the range of Americanism with composers past and present, and see whether they are as different as they claim. Music of Virgil Thomson, Carl Ruggles, Jerome Kitzke, and the premiere of a commissioned work by Brooklyn Philharmonic Composer Fellow Cristian Amigo.
May 20
Exalted Landscapes
In conjunction with “Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand & American Landscape Painting”
American concert music was born from Central European romanticism, rich in the sense of a place and its people. Antonin Dvorak inspired the first generation when he directed the American Conservatory in New York City in the 1890s. Trace the musical lineage of romantic landscape into the present generation. Music of Dvorak, MacDowell, Theodore Wiprud, and the premiere of a commissioned work by Brooklyn Philharmonic Composer Fellow Valerie Coleman.
2006 Season
November 13
Jewish Mosaic
In conjunction with the special exhibition “Tree of Paradise: Jewish Art from the Roman Empire”
A concert tracing the path of ancient cantorial singing into music old and new, featuring works by Israeli Paul Ben-Haim, Jewish-Peruvian Gabriela Lena Frank, Maurice Ravel, and Americans George Perle and Yehudi Wyner.
January 15
Manufactured Landscapes
In conjunction with the special exhibition “Manufactured Landscapes: The Photographs of Edward Burtynsky,” photographs by the Toronto artist depicting the intersection of land and technology
A concert of music that creates landscapes from the industrial sounds of the percussion battery and the brilliant sounds of the flute, featuring works by Claude Debussy, Edgard Varese, John Cage, John Luther Adams, and Theodore Wiprud.
March 19
Carnival of the Animals
In conjunction with the special exhibition “William Wegman Retrospective,” with his popular Weimaraner photographs
A family-oriented concert of dogs and other animals in music, featuring selections from Camille Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals along with works by George Gershwin, Erik Satie, Arthur Honneger, Philip Biimstein, and the premiere of a commissioned work by young Brooklyn composer Aaron Grad.
April 23
Homespun
In conjunction with the special exhibition “Symphonic Poem: The Art of Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson,” featuring the artist’s work documenting the lives and histories of her family, friends, and community
A concert of composers’ music for family and friends, featuring music by Mozart, Schubert, Dvorak, and Bernstein.
2005 Season
January 30
Image and Time
In conjunction with “About Time: 700 Years of European Painting”
How does music capture time, or stop it? Landscapes, portraits, impressionism, and more, from Dvorak, Virgil Thomson, Ira Mowitz, and Stephen Paulus. Featuring narrator Janet Bookspan.
February 27
Fourteen Stations
In conjunction with “Fourteen Stations”
In response to photographs of homeless people in tableaux representing the Stations of the Cross, a meditation on homelessness and the Passion. Movements of Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross alternate with music by Gavin Bryars, Moondog (Louis Hardin), and Kevin James.
May 1
Uptown Downtown
In conjunction with “Basquiat”
A survey of the musical scene in New York of the 1980s, when graffiti artist Basquiat worked, and a search for a musical equivalent to his art. Music of Elliott Carter, John Cage, David Lang, John Zorn, and Daniel Roumain.
2003–2004 Season
January 11
The Jewish Journey
In conjunction with “The Jewish Journey: Photographs of Frederic Brenner”
What makes music Jewish? Jewish composers from many times and places, including Max Bruch, Ernest Bloch, Osvlado Golijov, Shulamit Ran, Gideon Klein, and Leonard Bernstein.
February 1
African Roots
In conjunction with “Arts of Africa”
How have African musical elements found their way into classical music? String quartets of Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson and Frederick Tillis, music of Steve Reich, and a guest appearance by the Total Praise Music Ministry of Emanuel Baptist Church.
April 18
Brooklyn Music Today
In conjunction with “Open House: Working in Brooklyn”
A taste of today’s composers from or living in Brooklyn. Music of John Corigliano, Zhou Long, Theodore Wiprud, Derek Bermel, and Jennifer Higdon.
Brooklyn Variations was premiered at Music Off The Walls on April 18, 2004.
Learn More about Brooklyn Variations »2002–2003 Season
December 8
Transposed: In Her Own Image
In conjunction with “Exposed: The Victorian Nude”
Music by women, about women. Featuring the music of Amy Beach, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Tina Davidson, and Jennifer Higdon.
January 26
The Adventures of Raga
In conjunction with “The Adventures of Hamza”
Music and literature of Moghul lands, from Persia to Kashmir, heard through well-tuned Western ears. Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Alan Hovhannes, Gerald Levinson, Richard Danielpour, and Maurice Ravel take us beyond exoticism. Featuring mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham.
March 9
The Last Expression: Music from the Camps
In conjunction with “The Last Expression: Art from the Camps”
Erwin Schulhoff and Hans Krasa: musical voices stilled in the Holocaust, and music reflecting on that horror. Features a screening of the infamous Red Cross film from Therseinstadt, Steve Reich’s epochal Different Trains, and the Young People’s Chorus of New York in Krasa’s Brundibar.
May 18
Pulp Music
In conjunction with “Pulp Art”
Populist, sensational, sarcastic, and downright seedy . . . bad boys of the academy take music of the interwar years to the mass audience. Stravinsky, Milhaud, Weill, and Cole Porter. Featuring mezzo-soprano Rinat Shaham.
