Sound + Vision: an artistic collaboration

Ruth Barker, the Music Director of Gaudeamus Chamber Choir, tells us about how they teamed up with a visual artist for an innovative, multi-media concert.

It started with a Making Music webinar on audience development and a suggestion to consider liaising with other arts groups. Shortly after that, I was visiting artists’ studios during the Leigh Art Trail last year and a conversation with one of the artists, Amanda Jackson, led to the idea of combining a choral concert with an art exhibition. And thus, Sound + Vision was born.

We had further meetings to refine the concept and produce the actual event, which forms part of this year’s Leigh Art Trail. Amanda recruited artists who were interested in taking part and gave me an idea of the themes of their work. I then drew up a shortlist of pieces from our repertoire and invited the artists to choose what they thought would complement their work, and that way we arrived at the finished programme jointly, which will be a journey through the year, from summer round to spring.

Painting by Amanda Jackson

We had the concert at St Clement’s Church, Leigh on Sea, Essex on 4 July, and it was part of the Leigh Art Trail of this year! Rather than exhibit the actual works during the concert, we decided to run a series of photographs and videos on an overhead screen while we are singing, and the audience were encouraged to go and see the actual art in the various artists’ studios during the Art Trail week. Not only that, but paper and crayons were available for audience members to create their own art during the event! You can catch a snippet from our performance on our Facebook page.

The event was memorable and unusual, and the perfect escape. We also plan to create a video with the art and music combined and that should be out later this year. 

Find out more about Gaudeamus Chamber Choir on their website and follow them on Facebook