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NHS students create art for NGSO performance

NHS students create art for NGSO performance
A student creates art for "Pictures at an Exhibition"

Several Newark City School students got to experience the life of working artists in conjunction with a Midland Theatre show entitled “The Firebird.”

Meant to be a “marrying of the performing and fine arts,” the Midland show, held on Oct. 19, was a collaboration among the Newark Granville Symphony Orchestra, design studio Spork Fine Art and Newark High School art students, whose works for the show were inspired by Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

“Pictures” is a 10-movement piano piece by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. Inspired by the works of artist Viktor Hartmann, a friend of Mussorgsky’s who died suddenly of a brain aneurysm, the piece incorporates themes based upon artwork with titles ranging from “The Hut on Hen’s Legs” to “Catacombs.”

“My students listened to the music and to get inspiration, and they designed pieces to illustrate the movements,” said NHS art teacher Kathy Lorenz. 

Photographs of the students’ work were shown on a screen behind the orchestra as they played. Click here to find a photo album featuring all of the students' artwork, as well as some of the creative process.

The idea for the collaboration came from NGSO Executive Director Susan Larson, who served as Newark City Schools’ orchestra director from 2006-2011.

“The season for the symphony is (themed) ‘music and art reimagined,’” Larson said. “And with my public school teaching background, I know how talented and gifted and dedicated high school students are; students in general are. And I just thought it would be a really wonderful collaboration to work with artists in some way.”

Larson approached Lorenz with the idea, and “Pictures” began to take shape.

Lorenz was intentional about fostering independence and creativity among her students in every facet of the process, from planning their work to displaying it to pricing it for sale.

“It's been a really great experience for them — real-world setting up an art show and pricing their work and coming up with titles and working as if on commission, working with a client to produce art that suits their needs,” Lorenz said.

That included some hard lessons about competition in the art world.

“When they listened to the music, because there were only 10 movements and we needed to have representations for all of them, they were designing for what they wanted to illustrate, but they didn't necessarily get their first choice or even their second choice,” Lorenz said. “So they had to come up with designs, and it was a very real world experience of, ‘You're in competition against your classmates. The best ideas, the best designs will get chosen for that particular movement.’ And so that was maybe a harsh reality for some. But all in all, they were willing to do whatever they were given.”

The gallery of the students’ work was displayed at “The Bank,” 42 N. Third St., Newark, on Oct. 17 and 19, and a steady crowd of parents, fellow students and community members wandered through to take in the pieces, which ranged from ceramics to watercolor to photography.

And this particular piece was illustrative of the intention behind the exhibit: A collaboration between schools, arts and community.

“It's stunning. I walked in here and I am just blown away by their creativity, their dedication,” Larson said from the exhibit hall as students set up. “This is what art can do. ‘Art’ meaning music, art, theater — whatever. It's about community. It's about collaboration. It's about being our better self. When we do collaborations, in the arts, especially, it's about bringing beauty to the world.

This article also appeared in the October digital Paw Print newsletter.