Understanding how to make imagery that works with the music, that underpins the images that Messiaen was creating with his music, was the goal that I set out with.”
Deborah O'GradyPhotographer
At Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall on January 31 and Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall on February 2, the St. Louis Symphony, conductor David Robertson, and landscape photographer Deborah O’Grady will collaborate on a multimedia presentation of composer Olivier Messiaen’s monumental 1974 work “Des Canyons aux Étoiles.”
O’Grady will accompany the performances with photography that captures the striking natural beauty of the canyon lands of southwestern Utah—the same landscape that inspired Messiaen’s 12-movement composition.
“Understanding how to make imagery that works with the music, that underpins the images that Messiaen was creating with his music, was the goal that I set out with,” explains O’Grady. “My ultimate hope is that the movie and the music are so integrated together that they become something new, something different.”
O’Grady is also known as work as the artistic director of Meyer Sound’s Libra acoustic image system, which incorporates passive acoustical treatments with works of art created or selected by O’Grady. Libra panels are custom designed and installed to absorb sound to control reverberation.
Watch Deborah O’Grady discuss her goals for this production of “Des Canyons aux Étoiles:”