Schola’s 60th season finale presents an arresting musical and visual event featuring Jocelyn Hagen’s recent The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, for chorus, orchestra and cutting edge video. The intricate, animated treatment of Leonardo’s writings and drawings is controlled by the conductor via a computer operator in the orchestra. The artistic imperative of the moment reigns; the conductor is not constrained by a click track.
Hagen focuses on select musings and drawings from Leonardo’s many notebooks. Her subjects include the nature of time, art, the artist, and the famous Vitruvian Man. Her video collaborators not only enhance both Leonardo’s meanings and process, while visually harmonizing with Hagen’s carefully crafted musical palette, but add a rich, extra dimension to the audience’s experience.