Intuitive People:
Rolf-Erik Nystrøm – saxophone
Håkon Thelin – double bass
MA students from NMH (Norwegian Academy of Music)
Action painting and free jazz were closely associated in the 1950s and 60s. If you visit our Shape of Freedom exhibition on the afternoon and evening of 11 March, you may hear the sounds of improvised music accompanying the artworks at random intervals.
We are giving saxophonist Rolf-Erik Nystrøm and Håkon Thelin, with a selection of students from the Norwegian Academy of Music, the freedom to use the space as a sonic canvas. Visitors to the exhibition on this date can experience their spontaneous outbursts among the artworks, bringing the paintings – and the freedom impulses that created them – to life.
Intuitive People is a musical encounter between Masters students from the Improvisation Based Contemporary Music course led by Rolf-Erik Nystrøm and Håkon Thelin, and the Shape of Freedom exhibition. Students will create dialogues between the artworks, inspired by the art. In addition to the musical conversations with the paintings, British composer James Saunders has created a new work for this special occasion. Saunders works with open form composition, exploring group behaviours and decision making.
In abstract expressionism, the processes of creating a painting are an integral part of the actual art, not just the end result. Here there is much in common with improvised music. The abstract expressionists were close to the ‘New York school’, a musical approach that used abstract drawings as musical scores as an equivalent of action painting.
This event, which is experienced within the Shape of Freedom exhibition, is free to MUNCH museum ticketholders.
