Alice Ninni and Luca Cattaneo created a musical painting in 2010 set to the playful jazz of “Lacrime di Giulietta” from Glocal Sound by Matteo Negrim. In this creative confluence of art and music, musical notation is interwoven with birds flying, leaves, flowers, cities being built, and short messages such as “leave your car…plant a tree…stop global warming…enjoy nature.”
The illustrated story scrolls along almost forty feet of notation paper. Fifteen hours of images were shot and then edited down to a four-minute video in which each painted note is carefully synchronized with the played one. I especially like the concinnity of the tree leaves being drawn in the middle of the video with the sound of the piano and accordion notes.
The poet Joyce Kilmer often celebrated the beauty of nature in his work but is most remembered for the sweet lilt of this poetry gem!
Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth’s flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
-Joyce Kilmer