Painter Quinn Bryant’s “Power,” one of her works that inspired composer James Lee III in a work commissioned and premiered by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
In last Tuesday’s (8/27) Carnegie Mellon University News, Philip Crook writes, “There is power in uniting past and present. It’s a power that Carnegie Mellon University student Quinn Bryant and composer James Lee III both wield—in their own work, as well as in their recent collaboration for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra … which culminated in June 2024 with the world premiere of ‘Captivating Personas,’ Lee’s four-part orchestral piece inspired by Bryant’s canvases, for the orchestra’s 2023-24 season finale…. Bryant’s … paintings often draw from 18th- and 19th-century portraiture and photographs she takes … In November 2022, the orchestra approached Lee, an internationally recognized composer and professor of theory and composition at Morgan State University—the largest of Maryland’s historically Black colleges and universities—with a commission to collaborate with the local community. Lee looked to the Baltimore School for the Arts, where Bryant was in her senior year of high school…. Lee was captivated by one of Bryant’s paintings: ‘Power.’… a monumental reframing of the roles women have played in shaping history, depicting 13 women from diverse cultural backgrounds…. At each performance, audiences not only heard ‘Captivating Personas,’ but also experienced Bryant’s paintings as they were projected on screens.”
