Today the worlds of Music and Art came together for our fourth graders as they dove into the realm of abstract expressionist paintings. In this unit, students learned of a famous Russian artist, Viktor-Edouard Hartmann, who was friends with many musicians, including composer Modest Mussorgsky, during the 1860s. Inspired by Viktor’s great art, Modest created a series of music compositions, entitled “Pictures at an Exhibition”. As part of their final project in this unit, our fourth graders spent today listening to those compositions, allowing the tempos, rhythms, volumes, and emotions of each piece to flow through them as they created their own abstract expressionist paintings. Later this month, students will bring these pieces to their Music class, where Marissa Hodgett-Chiang, our Lower School Music Teacher, will work with students to create original music compositions on “GarageBand”, a computer program that allows students to compose music, based on another classmate’s art piece. If these beautiful art pieces are any indication, we can’t wait to hear the music scores they inspire!
