Title lettering for a piano concert performed by Margaret Fabrizio in Bombay, December 1996.
Margaret Fabrizio is a wonderful harpsichordist, composer and artist in San Francisco. I had the good fortune to study harpsichord with her when I was at Stanford University and have enjoyed her concerts ever since. My favorite of her compositions are the Holograms: mesmerizing shifting patterns performed on double-manual harpsichord (which lets the two hands play in the same range). In the visual realm, she assembles dense mysterious collages, which she layers in slowly dissolving slide shows.
This design was created for an intriguing piano concert she performed in Bombay, India, while staying at the home of an art dealer. The first half of the concert was all Bach and the second half was all Faure. Turn this design upside down and Bach becomes Faure.
The two could hardly be more different: Bach, the intricately precise baroque composer, and Faure, the florid lyrical impressionistic French composer. And yet there are connections...both are concerned with texture in a way that might intrigue an Indian ear. To play up the contrast, Margaret dressed in stark black and white for the first half of the concert, and flowing brightly-colored scarves for the second half.
Bach is my favorite composer. I enjoy playing his music on the piano, and have composed many pieces in his style, which I hope to post to this site soon. Faure I rarely hear performed, but every time I do I want to hear more. If you want to hear Faure's music, Margaret recommends Alicia Stott's recordings of Faure's complete piano music.