FuMar: Phil Furneaux: Saxophone and Krys Markowski: Piano 

During FuMar’s 2016 Tour de France, one of the venues was the home of a Parisian artist Béatrice Thèves-Engelbach (photo) who, after the concert, suggested that we experiment with improvising music using art as the inspiration.

She sent us this photo of a landscape on her piano, a painting on a zinc Paris roof tile: Landscape by Marie Deloume. Photo © LouisKend999.

FuMar came up with the idea of “walking through the landscape as a way of improvising the artwork.  

This is the “score” we used as a first recording.

We performed the music at one of our concerts in Toulouse and was encouraged by the response.

We further developed the idea with Beatrice to organise an Art-Music workshops: The Art inspires the Music and the Music inspires the Art and called this concept FuMarProvisation.

We organised our first workshop at Lancaster University and this story is told in another Blog: fumarmusic.com/posts/fumarprovisation-s-lancaster-workshop

Since then FuMar have been working on a musical language to help them to improvise artwork. The chart below is there chord colour chart.

Shapes can be described by relating the angler between the lines to the interval between the notes e.g. 90 deg is an interval of 5 semitones.

We have created Music-Cards for sharing our music/art. One side is the picture, the other is a QR code to the track which is immediately downloaded to you phone. So the artists work will be shared  wherever FuMar play a concert. 

Since then FuMar have been working on a musical language to help them to improvise artwork. The chart below is there chord colour chart.

Shapes can be described by relating the angler between the lines to the interval between the notes e.g. 90 deg is an interval of 5 semitones.

We have created Music-Cards for sharing our music/art. One side is the picture, the other is a QR code to the track which is immediately downloaded to you phone. So the artists work will be shared  wherever FuMar play a concert. 

This Music-Card belongs to the work of Isaac Heard, an art student at Lancaster University.

FuMar have been working on building up a portfolio of improvisations of work by Matisse, Dali and will record them in the near future.

Our next FuMarProvisation workshop is in Galerie Du Colombia, in Paris with artists Jeanne Casaril and Viviane Dunn on June 17th 2017.

The latest excitement is that Viv painted this picture while listening to one of tracks: Grez on the water.

One of the exciting aspects of these Art-Music workshops is the spontaneity and the excitement that no-one knows what will happen. The ambience will be a major part of the artists inspiration for their work.

Other dates for FuMarProvisation workshops in 2017 are:

Saturday June 17th: FuMarProvisation event: Galerie Du Colombia,Peinture, 91 Rue St Honore, Paris, 75001 with Visual Artists: Jeanne Casaril and Viviane Dunn

Saturday July 15th: FuMarProvisation event: [Bookcase Cafe](http://www.bookcasecarlisle.co.uk/cafe/4591047468) Garden 17-19 Castle Street Carlisle Concert in the evening at 19.30 Tickets from venue 01228544560 Visual Artist:Carol McDermott

Saturday October 14th: FuMarisation event: [Florence Art Centre](http://www.florencemine.com), Egremont, West Cumbria Concert 19.30: tickets from venue Visual Artist:

Saturday November 11th: FuMarProvisation Event: [Gregson Art Centre](http://www.gregson.co.uk), Lancaster Concert 19.30: tickets from venue Visual Artist: Alison Critchlow.

I will finish with an email from Alison Critchlow, a Cumbrian Artist, who replied to my invitation to participate in one of our workshops. It surmises much of what I feel:

“Hi Phil,

Thanks for your message. I love this idea ! I have been doing lots of work recently thinking about time and movement and resonance, also thinking about rhythm and flow and was thinking the other day that it would be fascinating to work with a musician. So I'd definitely be up for working with Fumar on this......I've often thought how many parallels there are between music and painting and it strikes me that if a painting and a piece of music could resonate on exactly the same vibe it would be a wonderful immersive experience.

How exciting !

All the best,

Alison”

Phil Furneaux 11 May 2017