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Contemporary American composer Adam Schoenberg's Finding Rothko is inspired by four of Mark Rothko's paintings that Schoenberg saw at the Museum of Modern Art.
The tranquil first movement, "Orange", is inspired by this 1949 work. Schoenberg describes it as "a reflective moment yet to be realized".
The second movement, "Yellow", is a contrast to the first. It is lively and gradually grows to a vast landscape of sound.
"Red" is a largely improvisatory movement. Its intensity highlights the saturated colors of the paintings, with jagged and abruptly shifting lines.
The final movement, "Wine", slowly morphs the theme that Schoenberg calls "Rothko's Theme". The painting that inspired it was the most difficult for Schoenberg to access, which may have helped to inspire the title Finding Rothko.

At Sight + Sound, we are excited to premiere Courtney Bryan's Syzygy, commissioned by Jennifer Koh. The new work, whose name means the alignment of the Moon and Sun on opposite sides of the earth, celebrates the artistic contributions of Frida Kahlo, Maya Lin, and Alma Thomas.
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter best known for her self-portraits. She is celebrated for her focus on depicting indigenous and female experiences in Mexico.
Maya Lin is an architect and sculptor best known for her design for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, which was selected in a national competition while she was still studying at Yale. Lin's art focuses on exploring perceptions of space and time and the emotions associated with those perceptions.
Alma Thomas was an African-American artist lauded most for the abstract works of her later career. Thomas's style is incredibly distinct, and her works were exhibited at the White House three times.

When his friend Viktor Hartmann died in 1873, Mussorgsky selected ten pieces of Hartmann’s artwork as the inspiration for a piano suite, which he titled Pictures at an Exhibition.
I. Gnomus The first movement, "Gnomus", is inspired by a sketch of Hartmann's depicting a gnome walking with a cane, probably a design for a wooden nutcracker or children's toy.
II. The Old Castle Viktor Hartmann sketched and painted many images of castles. The one most commonly tied to the second movement of Pictures is a stage design for Mikhail Glinka's opera Ruslan and Lyudmila. It depicts the castle of the evil wizard Chernomor.
III. Tuileries The third movement of Pictures draws its inspiration from Hartmann's depiction of children playing in the Tuileries Garden near the Louvre in Paris. Hartmann's sketch has been lost.
IV. Bydlo The fourth movement of Mussorgsky's suite is titled "Bydlo", a Polish word for cattle, though it is often called "The Ox-Cart." The original watercolor it is based on is now lost, and it is now often associated with a similar painting by Vincent van Gogh, shown here.
V. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks The lighthearted "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks" movement is based on a sketch of Hartmann's showing a child dressed as a chicken inside of an eggshell. This sketch is a costume design for child dancers in the ballet Trilby.
VI. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle This movement is inspired by two portraits that Mussorgsky himself owned. The portraits depict two Polish Jews, one rich and one poor. Mussorgsky contrasts the two figures, creating a musical conversation between them.
VII. Limoges The seventh movement is inspired by a set of drawings Hartmann sketched in the French city of Limoges. The movement is subtitled "Marketplace" and illustrates a conversation between several women in the city's market.
VIII. Catacombs This movement, inspired by Hartmann's drawing of himself in the Paris catacombs, is subtitled "Cum mortuis in lingua mortua" (With the Dead in a Dead Language). The subtitle refers both to the movement's original Latin title and to an imagined conversation between Hartmann's spirit and the catacomb's skulls.
IX. The Hut on Hen's Legs This energetic movement is inspired by a cannibalistic witch from Russian folklore, the Baba-Yaga. The sketch Mussorgsky chose is that of a clock in the form of the Baba-Yaga's hut, which is said to walk on the legs of a chicken.
X. The Great Gate of Kiev For the final movement of his suite, Mussorgsky chose what Hartmann himself described as his finest work, a design for a gate outside of Kiev commemorating Czar Alexander II. The movement recalls the "Promenade" theme in grandiose fashion with loud brass chorales.