Origin Stories
Music
January 27, 2022, 7:00pm
Concert: Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Rainbow Serpent co-founders Marques Redd and Mikael Owunna were the co-hosts of Origin Stories, a concert performed by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The program featured musical performances by the Symphony inspired by the public art mural Playing the Cosmic Strings and creation stories from the following cultures: Afro-Cuban (Silvestre Revueltas’ “Sensemayá”), Mayan (Carlos Rivera’s “Popul Vuh”), Korean (Jeong-yang Park’s “Four Scenic Views of Suri Mountain”), Igbo (Jessie Montgomery's “Strum”), Jewish (Joseph Haydn’s “Representation of Chaos”), and Greek (Ludwig van Beethoven’s “The Creatures of Prometheus” and Peter Boyer’s “Three Olympians”).
The program urged the audience to discover how composers express wonder and awe through the music they compose, hear how instrumentation choices bring stories to life, and experience how art provokes reflection on our own origin stories. It was attended by approximately 1,500 people.
January 25, 2022 - June 30, 2022
Virtual Program: Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
Schooltime: Origin Stories is an online education unit produced by the PSO, Mikael Owunna, and Marques Redd which was made available to over 20,000 students in 100 high schools across the country. The virtual unit included a PSO concert video featuring musical performances by the Symphony inspired by creation stories from the Igbo, Jewish, Greek, Mayan, Afro-Cuban, and Korean traditions; behind-the-scenes footage with artist Mikael Owunna; and cross-curricular resources to learn more about each featured origin story.
