Australian Art Quartetʹs (Australian art Quartet) presents a new format of their performance with the inclusion of smell.
“I think or I smell my mother’s perfume that transports me to my childhood. In the room my mother’s dressing table, on it there are various things, remember with longing, as she’s primping before going out. Her perfume with a special freshness, warm air of hot tongs, powder and blush — the personification of a promising, with the heady freedom of the adult world, which is somewhere far ahead.
The Australian art Quartet knows the power of fragrance. In the show “the Flavor of memories”, which was held at the art gallery, the Yellow House, Sydney, the sounds of the flavors mingle with the sounds of Tchaikovsky’s , Gurdjieff and Mountfort works.
The 2016 season the Art Quartet began with a push of classical music lovers, calling for a way out of the usual perception. Their ideas were embodied in the project” Fragrance of memories”, a gentle, soft and very sensual experience.
The creation of smells engaged Mexican by birth, educated in Paris, new York perfumer Carlos Huber. As an architect and protector of historical values, Huber sees the ingredients of the fragrance as “color in painting”.
An experienced storyteller before each piece of music, Huber describes how fragrances were conceived and constructed, each designed to excite certain historical moments or create a mood.
“Smells bypass rational thinking – it’s pure emotion,” says artistic Director of The art Quartet James Beck. “They can evoke long-forgotten memories by implementing the idea of a dormant part of our brain.”
Beck wants us to “come out of our shells” and embrace classical music in a new, broader sense. “We can’t just sit here in black clothes and wait for the audience to come to us,” he says. “It’s about people who don’t necessarily have knowledge of academic or classical music.”
Art Quartet, unfortunately, did not find devices for the spread of odors: turned to simple paper and sticks for applying fragrances.
For the work of Arvo pärta Fratres, the Quartet invites us on a journey not in the 70s of the last century, when the work was composed, but in the 17th century, to the Japanese Galleon of the Pacific ocean. At the same time you can hear the sounds of aroma with notes of spices, black pepper, Spanish skin, incense.
This is followed by: soap, fresh aroma of sage, cinnamon, orange flowers and Moroccan rosemary, in symbiosis with the music of Mexican composer Arturo Marquez. Replaced by a fragrance with notes of coconut and chili, representing the wealth of the New World, the music of George Gurdjieff.
Then comes manhood with subtle hints of champagne and flowers in the works of Tchaikovsky Scherzo of the Quartet No. 1.
This is a reminder of a bygone era, of men in black tuxedos who regularly attended the Opera.
Review from the expert ITNose Shemalenova Olga Olegovna:
“It is not by chance that the components that form the fragrance are called notes, their harmonious combination of chords. Fragrances, as well as music-creation of the person, a part of his soul”.
