On Western Musical Notation

Modern Western musical notation hasn’t changed a ton since it first became standard in the 16th century. Today, musicians still write tadpole-like notes on five lines (collectively, a staff) to indicate exact pitch, and the shapes of those notes determines the note lengths. Put many groups of five lines (staves) together, and you have yourself…

Memento, a memorable film

To celebrate the last day of classes, a group of friends and I impulsively decided to watch Christopher Nolan’s Memento (2000) well after midnight. After watching the film, we thought we might have trouble sleeping. To be clear: Memento is not a horror film. It occasionally shows gruesome images, but they do not haunt the…

Geometry in the Alhambra

If you walk into Fisher Fine Arts Library and head towards the side facing East, you’ll find a stunning collection of plasterwork used to restore the Alhambra, an architectural masterwork from the height of Islamic rule in Spain. Having visited the Alhambra just a few months ago, I was struck by the sheer scope of…

A Sound-Painting of Eternity

In 1941, pianist and composer Olivier Messiaen–trapped in a German prison camp with a violinist, a cellist, and a clarinetist–wrote his Quartet for the End of Time, a pivotal 20th-century work inspired by birdsong, the nature of time, and Messiaen’s own beliefs about the divine. What I’d like to talk about is the fifth movement…

Dreams of Dali

Salvador Dali is well-known for his dream-like surrealist paintings, such as The Persistence of Memory and The Elephants, and objects, such as “Lobster Telephone.” His works are always challenging and bizarre; when I visited the Dali Museum in 2017, I was most struck by distortion of form present in most if not all of his…

Philly’s Kimmel Center: Verizon Hall

I don’t remember going to the Kimmel Center for the first time; it has existed for my entire musical life, and I sometimes take it for granted. But this remarkable performing arts space was constructed just 18 years ago for the legendary Philadelphia Orchestra, which had previously called the Academy of Music (known affectionately as…

A Portrait of Power

There are few photographers whose images quite literally become history. However, perhaps we can say The New York Times staff photographer Doug Mills is one of them. Mills has worked with many presidents since he first began covering American politics in 1983. He has honed his craft to the point where each of his photos tells a powerful…

Chiaroscuro in Casablanca

On Valentine’s Day, Casablanca is returning to the big screen at the Philadelphia Film Center. I was inspired to revisit some clips from the film, and they were stunning. Besides its melodramatic plot and its morally ambiguous characters, this film benefits from the work of its German-Expressionism-influenced cinematographer Arthur Edeson, who masterfully uses lighting to…

Wassily Kandinsky: Colorist, Symphonist

Given our recent project’s focus on making abstract representations of sound and the ideas it carries, Wassily Kandinsky seems to be a good artist to talk about. It is striking to see how, from nebulous patches of yellow, red, and blue slightly left of center, Kandinsky’s forms erupt into numerous forms, textures, and hues. At…

Into The Spider-Verse: A Visual Marvel

When I walked into Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018), I didn’t expect to see one of the most visually stunning films in the past decade. Most of the plot centers around Miles Morales, a young Brooklyn teen fighting an uphill battle for his place alongside more established Spider-Heroes from other dimensions, including Peter Parker. While plenty of other…