• Schreker: Kammersymphonie
• Coenen-Rowe: A Cosmic Joke
• Kandinsky/de Hartmann, orch. Schuller: Der Gelbe Klang

In this multimedia collaboration, four graduate students aim to present the aesthetic strands of two early twentieth-century works and their contemporary possibilities. A staged production of Kandinsky’s colour opera Der Gelbe Klang, paired with Schreker’s Kammersymphonie and Lewis Coenen-Rowe’s A Cosmic Joke, will explore the potential of staging concert works and the affective possibilities of lighting design in music.

Der Gelbe Klang, or ‘The Yellow Sound’, is a 30-minute colour opera by Kandinsky and was first published in the almanac Der Blaue Reiter in 1911. Though plans for its performance never materialised, the work was eventually completed and performed in 1982 in conjunction with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. The opera is divided into six ‘pictures’ and is devoid of narrative or a plot: its emphasis is on movement, colour and expression.

More information at www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/jdpevent/performing-colourstaging-sound-spectra-ensemble-0