de Young Museum  - Painting with Light

"From Monument Valley to Silicon Valley"

Touchjet POND and ArtRage virtual painting performance for the Ed Ruscha show 

de Young Museum "Visible Music: - Inspired by Turner"

with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra All Stars  9/18/2015

de Young Museum - Artist in Residence July – September 2013

The process of painting music involves listening to understand both the emotional feeling of the music and its structure, and then exploring the expressive possibilities of paint on my canvas. 

I worked on a number of large canvases, exploring five main themes:

Reflections: Debussy, Bill Evans, and Satie

Night: Stella by Starlight, Whitacre, Adams, and Chopin

Then & Now 1: Bartok and Justen Electroacoustic

Then & Now 2: Bartok and Justen Electroacoustic 

Orchestra: Elgar and Debussy

With the gallery space as lab, I invited visitors to see my creative process of interpreting classical,  jazz and contemporary music. I was thrilled to have Gloria Justen visit as guest composer, creating new music for electro-acoustic chamber ensemble, with a world premiere performance at the museum. 

Sunday afternoons were the Swing Shift with the sounds of classic Big Band music and the sight of swing dancers stepping out.

Links to the de Young Museum website:

http://deyoung.famsf.org/deyoung/artist-in-residence/august-artist-residence-peggy-gyulai

http://deyoung.famsf.org/blog/qa-august-artist-residence-peggy-gyulai

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra Residency 2010-2011

For two seasons I worked with the wonderful San Francisco Chamber Orchestra as their first ever Painter in Residence. I created paintings for their concerts ahead of time in my studio, and (as I also did with the Philadelphia Orchestra Project) I observed their rehearsals to listen for some nuance (which hadn't been in the recordings) or some important impression, possibly unique to this group's particular performance.  I also get interesting insights form the conductors as they speak with the players while rehearsing. The paintings were displayed at the concerts so the audience could make the connection with the visuals while hearing the live concert,

Resound Ensemble SF, Creative Collaboration 2014-2015 

In 2014 I had the pleasure of meeting the Resound Ensemble, a talented and cool chorale group led by Ryan Connolly, Music Director. After they visited my studio to sing and perform a preview of their spring concert, I created this painting, called Luminous Night of the Soul, with music written by Ola Gjiello which they so beautifully performed. 

The Philadelphia Orchestra Collaboration 1999-2000

Collaborating with the legendary Philadelphia Orchestra to create a season-long series of large paintings which were then displayed for thousands of concert-goers was a formative moment in my career as well as the development of my working process. Working closely with then Artistic Administrator SImon Woods, I spent a year immersed in their music: attending rehearsals, studying the history and structure of the music and listening to recordings. We chose an agreed series of six works concert performances for my paintings, and a seventh was added later- a very large painting inspired by Bela Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra

The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia Multimedia 2004-2006

As videographer and performer, i created classical music videos for concert performance. ((tune in for more information soon)

Philadelphia Museum of Art: Artist-in-Residence- Art Futures

For one school semester, I mentored a classroom of high school art students, working with them while they created their own expressive oil painting based on music of their choice.