About The Secret Lives of Colour

The Secret Lives of Color is an ongoing compositional process for variable constellations of creative musicians. This work is inspired by Kassia St-Clair’s book of the same name. Reading the book’s stories and historical facts surrounding colors brings to mind how they play such a significant role in the arts, and in particular the way musicians use them to describe music. The music for this project therefore draws from this symbiotic connection to convey a sense of what I hear and feel when I read these stories. From the caves of Lascaux and Altamira to the Caravaggisti, the Gladzor Gospel to Cambridge’s Dr. Dee, St. Clair reveals a hidden universe that is astonishing and at times unexpected. Her findings deepens one’s appreciation for the complex wonders of the human experience on this planet.

Like so many musicians, color has always played a significant role in my compositional process; Chromesthesia or sound-to-color synesthesia is a type of synesthesia in which sound involuntarily evokes an experience of color, shape, and movement. ... Synesthetes that perceive colors while listening to music, experience the colors in addition to the normal auditory sensations.

When I was a young budding musician, I came to understand this after reading Olivier Messiaen’s Technique de mon language musical and his Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d’ornithologie. His rare ability to connect colors to  specific pitches has always fascinated me. So did Scriabin, who went as far as inventing a new tonality, the so-called mystic chord, as for him colors had become the means—color as sound-intoxication and color-intoxication as sound!

Not surprisingly, colors have been a recurrent theme in Jazz, with evocative titles such as Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, Ellington’s Mood Indigo and Mingus’ Orange Was the Color of Her Dress, Then Blues Silk. The compositions for this project aim at making similar connections, capturing the mood and spirit of a specific color first and foremost.

In music, color, just like shapes or textures, is yet another bridge between the real world and the imagination. I wish to poetically convey the sense of mystery held in these secret lives.

What do I hear when I experience nature, look at a painting in an art gallery, or simply moving through everyday life? Like so many musicians, color has always played a significant role in my compositional process; it’s often how I visualize sound; Chromesthesia or sound-to-color synesthesia is a type of synesthesia in which sound involuntarily evokes an experience of color, shape, and movement. ... Synesthetes that perceive colors while listening to music, experience the colors in addition to the normal auditory sensations. When I was a young budding musician, I came to understand this after reading Olivier Messiaen’s Technique de mon language musical and his Traité de rythme, de couleur, et d’ornithologie. His rare ability to connect colors to specific pitches  always fascinated me. Scriabin went as far as inventing a new tonality, the so-called mystic chord, as for him colors had become the means—color as sound-intoxication and color-intoxication as sound! Although I do not have this talent to remotely the same degree as these masters, I do see abstract shapes that evoke faded shades of Absinthe, Obsidian and Saffron, triggering fleeting thoughts of modes, rhythms and melodic fragments.

From the caves of Lascaux and Altamira to the Caravaggisti,  the Gladzor Gospel to Cambridge’s Dr. Dee,  St. Clair reveal a hidden universe that is surprising and sometimes unexpected. Reading her findings deepens one’s appreciation for the complex wonders of the human experience on this planet. The compositions for this suite do not aim at creating portraits, like Mussorgski’s approach in Tableaux d’une Exposition, but rather making connections with the moods and spirits of the color itself first and foremost. 

For me, in music, color, just like shapes or textures, is yet another bridge between the real world and the imagination. Like Ellington’s Mood Indigo and Mingus’ Orange Was The Color of Her Dress, Then Blues Silk, I wish to poetically convey the sense of mystery held in these secret lives.