Pianist John Bitoy performs an excerpt of Isaac Albéniz’s "Cantos de España," Op. 232, Preludio (Asturias [Leyenda]), composed in the late nineteenth-century.

Isaac Albéniz’s flamenco piano piece pairs with Albert Gleizes’ abstracted depiction of a dancer. Gleizes produced a series of paintings of Spanish dancers while he was in Barcelona from spring to December of 1916.

About the Performer
John Bitoy is an Afro-Dominican pianist and composer originally from Chicago, where he enjoys a multi-faceted career as a soloist and collaborative pianist. His recent solo engagements include performances of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the South Loop Symphony and Symphony of Oak Park. He has performed in esteemed halls such as the Eastman Theatre, Chicago Symphony Center, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millenium Park, Perelman Theater, Edward Pickman Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, The American Repertory Theater, Mary B. Galvin Recital Hall, and the Copernicus Center. 

John is a passionate advocate for new music in performance spaces. Past projects include the recording and world premiere of several pieces from Steve Wallace’s Solo piano and chamber compositions in 2020, followed by his opera in 2021. As an avid chamber musician, John has been invited to play at the Gateways Music Festival, The Boston Celebrity Series, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, The Bienen School of Music, the Philarmonic Society of Orange County, the American Repertory Theater, Caramoor, The Bold Tendencies festival, and has performed works by Marcus Norris, Tyshawn Sorey, Davóne Tines, Ahmed Alabaca, and Brian Raphael Nabors. 

Mr. Bitoy enjoys playing standard repertoire, yet he is simultaneously devoted to shedding light on the new music of composers of the African Diaspora. In addition to taking pleasure in his classical engagements, John is well versed in other genres. He was invited to perform with Sigur Ros during their 2019 United States Tour of "Riceboy Sleeps," and has been a featured artist at the Jazz Showcase and Andy’s Jazz Club.

Exhibition Website

"Cantos de España," composed in the late nineteenth-century

Pianist John Bitoy performs Ludwig van Beethoven’s "Piano Sonata No. 27 in E minor," Op. 90, composed in 1814.

The American Synchromists Morgan Russell and Stanton Macdonald-Wright revered the Classical period music composer Ludwig van Beethoven and loosely transposed musical concepts to their paintings. Joining four parts, like Beethoven’s piano sonatas, most of which are in three or four movements, Russell’s gesture reveals his aspiration for abstraction in painting to be analogous to music, the most ephemeral of the arts at the time.

About the Performer
John Bitoy is an Afro-Dominican pianist and composer originally from Chicago, where he enjoys a multi-faceted career as a soloist and collaborative pianist. His recent solo engagements include performances of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the South Loop Symphony and Symphony of Oak Park. He has performed in esteemed halls such as the Eastman Theatre, Chicago Symphony Center, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millenium Park, Perelman Theater, Edward Pickman Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, The American Repertory Theater, Mary B. Galvin Recital Hall, and the Copernicus Center. 

John is a passionate advocate for new music in performance spaces. Past projects include the recording and world premiere of several pieces from Steve Wallace’s Solo piano and chamber compositions in 2020, followed by his opera in 2021. As an avid chamber musician, John has been invited to play at the Gateways Music Festival, The Boston Celebrity Series, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, The Bienen School of Music, the Philarmonic Society of Orange County, the American Repertory Theater, Caramoor, The Bold Tendencies festival, and has performed works by Marcus Norris, Tyshawn Sorey, Davóne Tines, Ahmed Alabaca, and Brian Raphael Nabors. 

Mr. Bitoy enjoys playing standard repertoire, yet he is simultaneously devoted to shedding light on the new music of composers of the African Diaspora. In addition to taking pleasure in his classical engagements, John is well versed in other genres. He was invited to perform with Sigur Ros during their 2019 United States Tour of "Riceboy Sleeps," and has been a featured artist at the Jazz Showcase and Andy’s Jazz Club.

"Piano Sonata No. 27 in E minor," 1814

Kate Ragan presents her original composition “blink blank, blink blot,” 2024.

“Blink blank, blink blot” embodies Archipenko’s polychromatic palette and circular sense of motion in "Carrousel Pierrot," 1913 by passing material and repeated pitches between different instruments. The piece captures Archipenko’s negative space through a sparse texture populated with rests and exposed moments of repose. 

About the Composer
Kate Ragan is a DMA candidate in composition at Eastman School of Music. She received an MM in composition at Eastman and a BA in piano performance and political science from the University of Notre Dame, graduating summa cum laude. Her compositions often explore kaleidoscopic colors among instruments and stark, unpredictable contrast in register, texture, dynamics, and articulation. Also an active pianist, Kate strongly advocates for 20th and 21st century works, performing pieces by composers such as Olivier Messiaen, Tōru Takemitsu, Amy Williams, Tania León, and John Liberatore as well as premiering works by composers such as Marlies Hollevoet, Reilly Spitzfaden, and Trinity Hlynn Prater. As a passionate teacher, Kate has taught courses and lessons in composition, orchestration, and engraving for Eastman and University of Rochester undergraduate and graduate students. Through a research collaboration with Eastman Performing Arts Medicine and Eastman Community Music School, Kate is a piano instructor for adult students with Mild Cognitive Impairment and an accompanist for ENCORE, a choir dedicated to community members with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Her composition teachers include Daniel Pesca, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Robert Morris, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, and John Liberatore.  

Additional Support From
Tucker Johnson – Recording Technician 
Kaja Hammerschmidt – Flute 
Jacob Eichhorn – Clarinet 
Landon Chang – Alto Saxophone 
Noah Eastman – Bassoon 
Cynthia Chun-Hsin Liu – Piano

Orphism

“blink blank, blink blot,” 2024

Pianist John Bitoy performs an excerpt of Johann Sebastian Bach’s "The Well-Tempered Clavier," Book 1, Fugue No. 12 in F Minor, BWV 857, published in 1722.

František Kupka looked to the fugue, a musical structure characterized by interweaving and repeating a primary theme and one or more contrasting themes, as inspiration for "Disks of Newton (Study for “Fugue in Two Colors”)." Through the work’s subtitle, Kupka subtly points to eighteenth-century Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach, who developed the malleable fugue form through his two "Well-Tempered Clavier" books of compositions.

About the Performer
John Bitoy is an Afro-Dominican pianist and composer originally from Chicago, where he enjoys a multi-faceted career as a soloist and collaborative pianist. His recent solo engagements include performances of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the South Loop Symphony and Symphony of Oak Park. He has performed in esteemed halls such as the Eastman Theatre, Chicago Symphony Center, the Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millenium Park, Perelman Theater, Edward Pickman Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, The American Repertory Theater, Mary B. Galvin Recital Hall, and the Copernicus Center. 

John is a passionate advocate for new music in performance spaces. Past projects include the recording and world premiere of several pieces from Steve Wallace’s Solo piano and chamber compositions in 2020, followed by his opera in 2021. As an avid chamber musician, John has been invited to play at the Gateways Music Festival, The Boston Celebrity Series, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, The Bienen School of Music, the Philarmonic Society of Orange County, the American Repertory Theater, Caramoor, The Bold Tendencies festival, and has performed works by Marcus Norris, Tyshawn Sorey, Davóne Tines, Ahmed Alabaca, and Brian Raphael Nabors. 

Mr. Bitoy enjoys playing standard repertoire, yet he is simultaneously devoted to shedding light on the new music of composers of the African Diaspora. In addition to taking pleasure in his classical engagements, John is well versed in other genres. He was invited to perform with Sigur Ros during their 2019 United States Tour of "Riceboy Sleeps," and has been a featured artist at the Jazz Showcase and Andy’s Jazz Club.

"The Well-Tempered Clavier," Book 1, Fugue No. 12 in F Minor, published in 1722.

Kate Ragan presents her original composition “streaking strains dry,” 2024.

Sudden, extreme, dynamic, and textural shifts in “streaking strains dry,” 2024 portray Kandinsky’s expressionistic and abstract style in "Improvisation 28 (Second Version)," 1912. Kandinsky’s apocalyptic and themes manifest in active, agitated, rhythmically offset material whereas his salvatory themes manifest through slower, stoic sustain. 

About the Performer
Kate Ragan is a DMA candidate in composition at Eastman School of Music. She received an MM in composition at Eastman and a BA in piano performance and political science from the University of Notre Dame, graduating summa cum laude. Her compositions often explore kaleidoscopic colors among instruments and stark, unpredictable contrast in register, texture, dynamics, and articulation. Also an active pianist, Kate strongly advocates for 20th and 21st century works, performing pieces by composers such as Olivier Messiaen, Tōru Takemitsu, Amy Williams, Tania León, and John Liberatore as well as premiering works by composers such as Marlies Hollevoet, Reilly Spitzfaden, and Trinity Hlynn Prater. As a passionate teacher, Kate has taught courses and lessons in composition, orchestration, and engraving for Eastman and University of Rochester undergraduate and graduate students. Through a research collaboration with Eastman Performing Arts Medicine and Eastman Community Music School, Kate is a piano instructor for adult students with Mild Cognitive Impairment and an accompanist for ENCORE, a choir dedicated to community members with an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. Her composition teachers include Daniel Pesca, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Robert Morris, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, and John Liberatore.  

Additional Support From 
Tucker Johnson – Recording Technician 
Kaja Hammerschmidt – Flute  
Jacob Eichhorn – Clarinet 
Talia Berenbaum – Bass Trombone  
Gregory Galand – Double Bass 
Hannah Harnest – Piano

“streaking strains dry,” 2024

Patrick Holcomb performs his original composition “Rapture After Schoenberg and Kandinsky,” 2024.

“Rapture after Schoenberg and Kandinsky” is inspired by Vasily Kandinsky’s "Improvisation 28 (Second Version)," 1912 and the final movement of Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2, “Entrückung,” 1908. In Holcomb’s work, Schoenberg’s opening gesture becomes distant thunder, and the subsequent melodies in the viola and cello parts become horn calls and, later, the bells are imagined sounding from the church in the upper-right corner of Kandinsky’s painting.

About the Performer
Patrick Holcomb (b. 1996) is a composer based on Long Island. A member of Mensa since age nineteen, Holcomb seeks to write music that is both intellectually and emotionally engaging. His recent compositional honors include the 2022 ASCAP Rudolf Nissim Prize, a 2021 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, a 2021 American Prize in Composition, and a 2020 BMI Student Composer Award. In addition to concert music, Holcomb also composes music for film. Recently, his score for the 1925 silent documentary "Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life," which was commissioned by Indiana University Cinema as a part of the 2019/2021 Jon Vickers Film Scoring Award, accompanied the film during its screenings at the Museum of Modern Art in 2023.  

Holcomb completed his undergraduate studies at Ithaca College, from which he graduated top of his class in the School of Music with a BM in Composition in 2018. He went on to earn an MM in Composition and an MM in Music Scoring for Visual Media from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in 2021. His former teachers include Claude Baker, Jorge Villavicencio Grossmann, Robert Morris, Eugene O’Brien, Evis Sammoutis, Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, Tom Schneller, Aaron Travers, Dana Wilson, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon. Holcomb is currently a PhD candidate in composition at the University of Rochester Eastman School of Music as a recipient of the Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull University Fellowship from the University of Rochester. In addition to composing, Holcomb is also a passionate educator. He is currently an Adjunct Instructor of Music at Hofstra University.

“Rapture After Schoenberg and Kandinsky,” 2024

Nicolas Chuaqui performs his original composition “Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten," 2024. 

Chuaqui’s “Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten” (“I feel air from another planet”) connects Kandinsky’s painting to Arnold Schoenberg’s String Quartet No. 2 (1908), drawing from Schoenberg’s setting of his string quartet on Stefan George’s poem “Entrückung” and the groundbreaking inclusion of a soprano soloist in its final two movements. Through frequency shifting, delay lines, and spatialization, Chuaqui’s work evokes the imaginative and striking worlds expressed by Schoenberg and Kandinsky.

About the Performer
Nicolas Chuaqui (b. 1990) is a composer of wide-ranging music for voices, instruments, and Composer Nicolas Chuaqui has been praised for his "sharp and precise imagery" (The Utah Review) and recognized as a composer of depth and imagination. Most recently, he was winner of the Khorikos ORTUS International New Music Competition and winner of the Bernard Rogers Prize from the Eastman School of Music for his orchestral work Cantus. Equally at home in acoustic and electroacoustic settings, Chuaqui composes music for a broad range of performers, all of which is influenced by his background as a performer and his fascination with musical memory, time, and impression. He has worked with the Oregon Symphony, Ensemble Signal, The Crossing, New Voices Opera, pianist Jason Hardink, and many others. His work has appeared at many venues including the NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival, American Composers' Orchestra's EarShot Program, and the SEAMUS National Conference. In addition to composition, Chuaqui takes an active role in music as both a performer and educator. He has performed newly written compositions as conductor, pianist, and vocalist, and, in 2023, he founded Become New Music, a New York-based ensemble dedicated to currently living composers. Chuaqui is a dedicated teacher of composition, theory, and technology, and has served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Wyoming and a teaching assistant at the Eastman School of Music. He holds a doctorate in composition from Eastman, where his primary teachers were Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez, David Liptak, and Robert Morris, and he also holds degrees from Indiana University and Dartmouth College.

“Ich fühle Luft von anderem Planeten,” 2024

Europe’s Society Orchestra performs “Castle Walk,” 1914, composed by James Reese Europe.

Orphist artists looked to popular dance and music of the time. After a transformative trip to New York in 1913, Picabia incorporated many impressions of the city into his art, including the syncopations of early jazz he heard in Harlem.

“Castle Walk,” 1914

Transcript
Tracey Bashkoff: Welcome to the Guggenheim. I’m Tracey Bashkoff, Senior Director of Collections, and Senior Curator.  

Vivien Greene: And I’m Vivien Greene, Senior Curator of 19th and Early 20th Century Art. We curated this exhibition, "Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930."  

Bellara Huang: I am Bellara Huang, Curatorial Assistant of Exhibitions, and I supported Tracey and Vivien over the last two years on this project.  

Bashkoff: Here you’ll see artworks that explore themes of Orphism. Artists associated with Orphism sought to channel the innovations of the early twentieth century, which radically altered how people lived and thought, by capturing the simultaneity of modern existence in their art. Newer, faster modes of transport and communication changed conceptions of time and space, the aerial perspectives of early flight offered manifold viewpoints, and electric lighting animated the texture of the city streets at night. In their works artists also made tangible the dynamic rhythms of popular music and dance, especially early jazz and tango, by articulating the multiple physical sensations and movements occurring synchronously in contemporary cafés and dance halls. 

Greene: Artists such as Marc Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Mainie Jellett, František Kupka, Francis Picabia, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, and Morgan Russell created kaleidoscopic compositions that often encompass disks of brilliant color and evoke multisensory experiences. When pushed to its limits, Orphism meant total abstraction. 

Huang: A poet and critic, Guillaume Apollinaire invented the word “Orphism” to describe this art. He based it on the Greek myth of Orpheus, who played the lyre and whose magical music and song even moved stones and allowed him, if briefly, to beat death and save his love, Eurydice, from the underworld. The idea behind this term was that music is transcendent. It can convey feelings and sensations in the most ethereal and abstract form.  

Bashkoff: Vivien and I have been curators at the museum for thirty years, but this is the first exhibition we have organized together.  

Greene: It combines our respective areas of interest: I am an expert in Divisionism and Neo-Impressionism, and Tracey is an expert on Vasily Kandinsky and the Blue Rider group. The art and artists of these movements all had significant impact on the Orphist artists.  

Huang: I have expertise in art of the Russian Empire and contributed in particular to research on artists from current-day Ukraine and Russia who were important presences for Orphism. 

A quarter of the exhibition features artwork from our own collection—many even from our founding collection. Some of these paintings have never been exhibited! We spent many hours in our art-storage facilities viewing works and collaborating with our conservators, who had to treat some so we could include them in the show.  

Greene: I’m a member of the Green Team at the museum, which is committed to incorporating sustainability into our work, including exhibition research and production. While organizing this exhibition, we traveled to many public and private collections in the United States and all over Europe (from Dublin to Prague and points in between) to view the artworks we hoped to include and to visit archives to learn more about the artists’ lives. Happily, we were able to combine travel for this exhibition with other work-related responsibilities, such as accompanying artworks on loan to other museums as couriers, which helped contain our carbon footprint.

Read more at guggenheim.org/audio

Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930

Learn more about Harmony and Dissonance from the exhibition's curatorial team.

Descubra más sobre "Armonía y Disonancia" con el equipo curatorial de la exposición.

Transcript
Tracey Bashkoff: Bienvenido al Guggenheim. Soy Tracey Bashkoff. 

Vivien Greene: Y yo soy Vivien Greene. Juntas curamos esta exposición, "Armonía y disonancia: orfismo en París, 1910-1930." 

Bellara Huang: Y yo soy Bellara Huang. Colaboré con Tracey y Vivien durante los dos últimos años de este proyecto. 

Bashkoff: Aquí encontrará obras de arte que exploran temas del orfismo. Al plasmar en su arte la simultaneidad de la existencia moderna, los artistas pertenecientes al orfismo trataron de canalizar las innovaciones de principios del siglo XX, que alteraron radicalmente la forma de vivir y pensar de las personas. Los nuevos y más rápidos medios de transporte y de comunicación transformaron la percepción del tiempo y el espacio. Las perspectivas aéreas de los primeros vuelos ofrecieron diferentes puntos de vista, y la iluminación eléctrica dio vida a la textura de las calles de la ciudad por la noche. En sus obras, los artistas también dieron forma concreta a los ritmos dinámicos de la música popular y la danza, especialmente, el jazz y el tango en sus inicios; logrando articular las diversas sensaciones y movimientos físicos que se producían simultáneamente en cafés y salones de baile contemporáneos.
Greene: Artistas como Marc Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Sonia Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Mainie Jellett, František Kupka, Francis Picabia, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso, Stanton Macdonald-Wright y Morgan Russell creaban composiciones caleidoscópicas que con frecuencia incluían discos de colores brillantes y evocaban experiencias multisensoriales. Llevado al límite, el orfismo significaba abstracción total.

Huang: Guillaume Apollinaire fue poeta y crítico de arte, y fue quien inventó la palabra “orfismo” para describir este arte. Se basó en el mito griego de Orfeo, que tocaba la lira y que con su mágica música y su canto logró mover piedras para vencer a la muerte —al menos brevemente— y salvar a su amada, Eurídice, del inframundo. La idea que subyace a este término es que la música es trascendente. Puede transmitir sentimientos y sensaciones de maneras etéreas y abstractas. 

Bashkoff: Vivien y yo hemos trabajado como curadoras del museo durante treinta años, pero esta es la primera exposición que organizamos juntas. 

Greene: Combina nuestras respectivas áreas de interés: Yo soy experta en divisionismo y neoimpresionismo, y Tracey es experta en Vasili Kandinsky y el grupo Der Blaue Reiter. El arte y los artistas de estos movimientos tuvieron un gran impacto en los artistas orfistas. 
Huang: Yo me especializo en el Imperio Ruso y he contribuido, en particular, a la investigación sobre artistas de las actuales Ucrania y Rusia, que fueron presencias importantes para el orfismo.

Una cuarta parte de la exposición presenta obras de arte de nuestra propia colección; muchas incluso pertenecen a nuestra colección fundacional. Y hay algunas que nunca se han expuesto. Pasamos muchas horas en nuestras instalaciones de almacenamiento de arte viendo obras y colaborando con nuestros conservadores, que tuvieron que restaurar algunas para que pudiéramos incluirlas en la exposición. 

Greene: Soy miembro del Equipo Green del museo, que tiene el compromiso de incorporar la sostenibilidad a nuestro trabajo, incluso en la investigación y la producción de exposiciones. Para organizar esta exposición, visitamos numerosas colecciones públicas y privadas de Estados Unidos y de toda Europa (de Dublín a Praga, pasando por otros lugares) para ver las obras que queríamos incluir y visitar archivos a fin de conocer mejor la vida de los artistas. Afortunadamente, pudimos combinar los viajes para esta exposición con otras responsabilidades laborales; por ejemplo, acompañamos en calidad de mensajeros obras de arte en préstamo a otros museos, lo que contribuyó a reducir nuestra huella de carbono.

Obtenga más información sobre los orígenes y los temas de la exposición.

Listen to audio about exhibitions and artworks at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. Frank Lloyd Wright's landmark building is home to a collection of modern and contemporary masterpieces.

New tracks tagged #Harmony and Dissonance: Orphism in Paris, 1910–1930