On 17 June, a musicpaintingLIVE performance with a striking concept of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring took place, as part of a program ‘AWAKENING’ by pianist Reinis Zariņš, 17 June, Hanzas Perons, Riga. As a music painter, Maryleen Schiltkamp has collaborated with various musicians internationally, but the core of her live painting performance art was created in artistic partnership with the Latvian pianist Reinis Zariņš. In this collaboration – musicpaintingLIVE – the pianist and the painter co-author visual creations that combine live music with painting on canvas, following the musical movement and the colour of sound directly on stage during a concert. Reinis Zariņš and Maryleen Schiltkamp are known for their unusual programs, with a repertoire including Bach/Busoni, Chopin, Franck, Ravel, Messiaen, Medtner, Gubaidulina and Shostakovich. They have performed at festivals including in London (Baltic Art Form), Amsterdam (Winteravonden aan de Amstel – Hermitage) and CĒSIS Concert hall in Latvia.

The concept:

From its inception, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was meant to be expressed
and visualised by dance — the ancient rituals represented on stage were originally dance- like games, mystic circles and sacred lines drawn by dancing tribes, ending in a horrific and earth-shattering sacrificial dance. For pianist Reinis Zarins and painter Maryleen Schiltkamp, the intensity of experiencing The Rite calls for a style of performance that most directly involves both the artists and their audiences. It is like a visceral dance, stretching their limits, the music inexorably pulling towards its end. This is a unique interaction between a pianist who tackles Stravinsky’s massive orchestral score with his two bare hands, and a painter who ‘dances’ through The Rite, in a choreography of paint and brushes on a large-sized canvas. The resulting synergy is striking and powerful.

In The Rite of Spring, there is awakening of people and nature, there is something prehistoric and foundational in its music, there are shackles to be thrown off, and there is the fateful inevitability of sacrificial death from the very first to the last note.

The Video-project of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was sponsored by the LiveART Foundation

Concert-video, 17 June @Hanzas Perons, Riga

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