Isabella Fabbri, saxophones

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Sounds at an Exhibition is a site-specific performance designed for museums of modern and contemporary art. The performance foresees that a group of visitors is accompanied by a musician in a walk through the museum rooms, during which the participants are invited to discover and contemplate ten previously selected artworks, while at the same time they listen to compositions for solo saxophone. The music is chosen, composed or improvised by the performer with the purpose of transposing the works of art into music. The public is invited to take part in the event by producing sounds or noises by imitation. Leaving aside the canons of the guided tour normally provided in museums, the performance has as its main objective to bring the public closer to modern and contemporary art through another form of artistic expression (music), in order to reformulate the relationship between the visitor and the work of art. The performance and its title are inspired by the solo piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition" that the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky wrote in 1874 in honor of the Russian painter Viktor Hartmann.