The Shepherd School of Music’s 50th anniversary commissions series continued with the sold-out premiere of “The Fruit and the Work,” a multimedia collaboration between composer Kurt Stallmann and poet Joseph Campana. Performed Oct. 5 in Alice Pratt Brown Hall’s Wortham Theatre, the piece explored the evolving relationship between humans and honeybees through music, poetry, electronic sound and visual design.
Billed as the culmination of Stallmann and Campana’s long-term collaboration, “The Fruit and the Work” follows last year’s performance of “The Chapel in the Hive” at the Moody Center for the Arts. Together, the two works form part of a multiyear exploration of how humans and bees have co-evolved, drawing on both science and literature to create immersive artistic experiences.
“One of the things I’m really happy about is that the Shepherd School offers a wide array of music in terms of what music can be,” said Stallmann, professor of composition and theory and director of the Rice Electroacoustic Music Labs. “What Joe and I are doing is bringing together text, sound, imagery and creating a kind of multisensorial experience for an audience member. That is where music is today in the world.”
“It has been this kind of beautiful, organic dialogue between us that has changed how I write,” said Campana, the William Shakespeare Professor of English. “I’d say it’s one of the most transformative experiences I’ve had as a writer.”
The performance is part of a multiyear initiative commissioning seven new works from Shepherd School faculty composers, a project supported in part by Rice University’s Office of Research. Learn more about the 50th anniversary commissions here.
