Mornings with O’Keeffe | How Composer Victoria Bond Found Inspiration in O’Keeffe’s Paintings

Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings suggest music to award-winning composer Victoria Bond, who has composed two works based on several of them. The first, for string quartet, takes its title from the O’Keeffe painting Blue and Green Music, 1919–1921. According to Bond, “I was struck by the sense of motion in this work, and its variations on only two colors.” The second work is called “New York City at Night” and is based on four of O’Keeffe’s New York paintings. These, according to Bond, “had the energy and rhythm of the city with its glittering lights and towering buildings.”

In this talk, hear from Bond about how these compositions took shape for the composer and how for her, O’Keeffe’s visual art can find expression in instrumental music. 

Listen to Bond’s ‘Blue & Green Music’:

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This talk was recorded as part of our free Mornings with O’Keeffe lecture series on the first Wednesday of every month.

About the Speaker

Internationally acclaimed composer/conductor Victoria Bond’s compositions have been praised by the New York Times as “powerful, stylistically varied and technically demanding.” Bond’s operas include Clara (Berlin Philharmonic Easter Festival, Germany); Mrs. President (Anchorage Opera); The Miracle of Light (Chamber Opera Chicago); Travels (Opera Roanoke); A More Perfect Union (The Center for Contemporary Opera, NYC). Bond has composed eight operas, six ballets, two piano concertos and numerous orchestral, chamber, choral, and keyboard compositions. She has been profiled in the Wall Street Journal, NBC Today Show, People Magazine, and New York Times. Her music is recorded on the Naxos, Koch, Albany, GEGA, Protone, and Family Classic labels. Bond is the creator, producer and Artistic Director of Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival, which she hosts every year in New York City. She has been honored with the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Walter Hinrichsen Award and the Miriam Gideon Prize.