UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The College of Arts and Architecture, the Penn State School of Music and the Palmer Museum of Art invite the public to experience an evening where sound, poetry, and visual art converge during "Art After Hours: Rhythms + Rhymes" on Thursday, April 23, from 5 to 8 p.m. This free, drop-in event will take place throughout the Palmer Museum, including the Event Space and galleries.
Guests are encouraged to engage with art in new and unexpected ways, through live performances by School of Music students and ekphrastic poetry readings by Penn State writers. Attendees can also create their own Dada-inspired poems using repurposed artwork labels while enjoying light refreshments in a relaxed, creative atmosphere.
The evening’s featured performance, "Resonance: An Evening of Sound, Word, and Image," offers an intimate and immersive experience in the Palmer’s Ned A. Brokloff Gallery of postwar modern art. Penn State’s newly formed Contemporary Music Ensemble collaborates with students from Advanced Poetry Writing to present an interdisciplinary program that blends music, literature, and visual art.
Drawing on texts by Emily Dickinson, Rumi, and Federico García Lorca, as well as letters from Attica prison, the performance weaves together poetic and historical voices with the evocative works of artists such as Wassily Kandinsky. These elements are brought to life through compositions by Tōru Takemitsu, George Crumb, Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Leilehua Lanzilotti and Frederic Rzewski. Student poets will also share original ekphrastic works inspired by both the artwork and the music, transforming the gallery into a dynamic, living performance space.
This unique collaboration highlights the creativity of Penn State students across disciplines and offers audiences a rare opportunity to experience the intersection of sound, word, and image in an intimate museum setting.