“Come Colorful See,” the Nobel Conference 48 Concert, will be presented at 8:15 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 2 in Christ Chapel. The concert will feature the work of pianist Yumiko Oshima-Ryan, images by Dave Ryan, the poetry of Joyce Sutphen, and dance choreographed by Melissa Rolnick and dancer Jane Chung ’13. The performance includes music, word, visual images, and dance connecting the evening’s performance to the theme of Nobel Conference 48, “Our Global Ocean.” Admission to the concert is free and open to the public.
In developing the program for the concert, pianist Yumiko Oshima-Ryan wrote, “I began thinking about how (Claude) Debussy drew musical inspiration from the colorful sea: the subtlety of hues, lyrical movement, and playful interaction of colors. Musicians often think about sound in terms of color — not only how to produce the sounds that express subtle nuances and shades of meaning but also how sounds, like colors, work together in harmony.” She also drew on a painful personal experience in the ocean when, while swimming with friends, she was stung by a jellyfish. This experience gave her a “more complicated relationship with the ocean.” She admires those who spend careers studying the world’s oceans and appreciates the courage required to dive into the “deep, dark ocean.” Performers, she continues, “have a similar calling to dive into the unknown, and we too can’t stop doing it.”
With that in mind, Oshima-Ryan drew on the talents of fellow Gustavus faculty colleagues Dave Ryan, Joyce Sutphen, Melissa Rolnick, Peter McGuire and Sharon Mautner-Rodgers and created “Come Colorful See — celebrating the spirit of color through music, images, words, and movement.”
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