"Black Birds, Red Hills - a Portrait of Six Paintings of Georgia O'Keefe (2005). Berkeley City Club. Trio BrillianteC

Here is Libby Larsen(b. 1950) "Black Birds, Red hills - A Portrait of Six Paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe (2005). Based on six paintings.  Pedernal Hills, Black Rock, Red Hills and Sky, A Black Bird with Snow-Covered Red hills, Looking (coda).

Trio Brilliante in the Berkeley Chamber Performances series, at the Berkeley City Club, performed her composition.  Trio Brilliante includes Tom Rose on the clarinet, and Emily Onderdonk on the viola, and Betty Woo on the piano.

Pedernal Hills



Black Rock


Red Hills and Sky:



Excerpts from Larsen's notes;  "Georgia O'Keefe found the flow of time and color in music inspiring to her work as a painter.  "Black Birds, Red Hills is inspired by six O'Keefe paintings, each exploring the flow of time and color on her beloved red hills of New Mexico...The first, third and fourth movements reflect the "V shape" of the hills just outside O'Keefe's window.  She describes the shape as the arms of two great hills which reach out to the sky and hold it, suggesting to me an abstract cradle. In the second movement I liken the muisc to the O'Keefee's image of the black rocks found on her walks to the Glen Canyon dam.  She became fascinated with the effects of time on the rocks, noting that time has turned them into objects that are precious to look at and hold.  Finally, to paint the black birds which lived in the hills near her, O'Keefe covered the red hills with snow and focussed on the bird as a metaphor for time, always there and always moving away."   

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