🎶 Icons from two very different mediums were onstage at SFCM in January, when former Yes frontman Jon Anderson's musical about the life of Modernist painter Marc Chagall got a workshop courtesy of Opera and Musical Theater Chair Heather Mathews.
Mathews' and SFCM's involvement in the project began last summer when she was contacted by Anderson's team; she pitched it as a project for Winter Term, SFCM's annual opportunity for students to step outside their usual areas of study.
"Color of Love" had been percolating in Anderson's mind since he met the legendary painter in the south of France in the late 1970s, a meeting arranged by the pair's mutual friend, Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman. "I met Chagall on his 90th birthday," Anderson said. "And we just kind of smiled a lot at each other." Anderson visited the artist at his home, where he would play guitar and sing for him, and soon was writing songs about Chagall's extraordinary life.
Student Natalia Hulse, who sang in the performance, said, "There is a certain risk involved in creating something new and my takeaway is that if you have people that are willing to give everything into putting up something new, the effort is worth the risk."
Full story at the link in bio.