“We are notes in this beautiful concert of existence. If we don’t play ourselves, nobody will.” ~ Rodrigo De Souza

 

What is music? Perhaps it’s a collection of sounds, tiny bands of air waves, played in a predetermined order. Perhaps it’s just the screeching of tightened strings, the braying of brass played in bravado, and the whistling of woodwinds, coming together in an orchestral cacophony which we’ve come to “enjoy” as an acquired, “refined” taste. Perhaps music is just a result of our primitive brains trying to understand what it is to receive sound waves of various wavelengths. And yet, play a certain chord, or give a moment of rest between two notes, and we give pause. Hear the exultant chorus calling victory in the background, the desolate strings sighing in dispare, or the gentle piano, dropping notes like raindrops, and we feel a stirring of emotion found nowhere else. Somehow, arranging notes in a certain order can tell a story of longing, desperation, of ultimate triumph and of blissful peace that words fail to describe.

  

Ensemble is a series of sculpted wearable arts that transform fragments and materials of musical instruments into forms that interact and merge with textile and body. Through this field of design, I have depicted the power which music brings; of moment when the musician and their instrument coalesce into one entity... A timeless art form.