Missouri Classical Music News

There’s a new contemporary music and visual arts series in town, ArtSounds, and its six-concert lineup for 2006-2007 begins this week at the Kansas City Art Institute. . . .

ArtSounds is a collaboration of faculty and students of the art institute and the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory, where Paul Rudy also teaches. Its goal is to “explore cross-media expression through creative concert-making,” according to its first concert announcement.

“One of our selling points,” said Gibson, who has taught at the art institute and the conservatory, “is that conservatory students employ a certain rigor and discipline that artists can learn from, and art students exhibit a certain freedom and creativity that the conservatory student can benefit from.” . . .

“We’re not even calling them concerts,” Gibson said. “They’re events.”

The first program, for example, will include music by Rudy and George Crumb and visual montages by Reif in collaboration with KCAI faculty and students.

The goal is not simply to project images while music plays but to have the two elements inextricably linked, Gibson said.

“The art and music are equal partners. From the point of conception, there has been a theme, and it has been considered on every level.”