Helen Frankenthaler, Making Music, 2000. Etching, aquatint, and mezzotint, artist proof I, 15 1/4 x 26 in. Helen…
Helen Frankenthaler, Making Music, 2000. Etching, aquatint, and mezzotint, artist proof I, 15 1/4 x 26 in. Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, New York. © 2026 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
at 6:00PM
Conversation and Performance | Lyrical Abstraction: Composer Kenneth Fuchs and the Art of Helen Frankenthaler
Longform Content
To celebrate the Grey Art Museum’s exhibition Making Music: Helen Frankenthaler Prints from the NYU Art Collection, join us for an evening of conversation and performance that explores connections between visual abstraction and musical expression. Composer Kenneth Fuchs (Professor of Composition, University of Connecticut) will discuss how the evocative colors and compositions of Frankenthaler’s Abstract Expressionist paintings inspired him to pen concertos and other vibrant, emotionally direct music. Fuchs will be in dialogue with Dr. Douglas Dreishpoon (Director, Catalogue Raisonné Project, Helen Frankenthaler Foundation) to explore how both composer and artist sought to give form to feeling through poetic means.
Student musicians from the Department of Music and Performing Arts, NYU Steinhardt, will perform a movement from Fuchs’s Fire, Ice, and Summer Bronze (1986), composed after two works on paper by Frankenthaler. Coached by Prof. Javian Brabham (Director of Brass Studies, Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions, NYU Steinhardt).
Visitor Access & Registration
Please register to attend this event.
For attendance without an active NYU ID card, RSVP by Tuesday, September 22 to guarantee building access.
Arrive early to view Making Music before the event—the exhibition will be open from 11am to 8pm on September 23.
NYU’s Grey Art Museum provides reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities. Requests for accommodations should be submitted at least two weeks in advance. Please email greyartmuseum@nyu.edu or call (212) 998-6780 for assistance.
Credits
Co-sponsored by the Center for Ballet and the Arts, NYU and the Department of Music and Performing Arts, NYU Steinhardt.
Making Music and this program are supported by the Frankenthaler Prints Initiative, a grantmaking program established by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation in 2018 to enrich academic institutions’ collections and resources and promote scholarly research on Frankenthaler’s innovative contributions to the field of printmaking.
