The idea to use the colored light as the independent and developed voice of musical score belongs to Russian composer Alexander Scriabin and was realized in his symphonic poem “Prometheus” in 1910.

Working on her Scriabin program Iryna Riabchun started to use the light of colored lamps in her solo piano recitals. Iryna's f irst piano & colored light performance with the music of A.Scriabin (Sonata N9 “Black Mass” and 12 etudes work N8) took place in the Ukrainian National Children’s Music Academy (Kiev) in February 2000 (assistant – Olena Dobrovolska).

Next  P&L performance took place in June 2001 in Erasmus Huis, Jakarta, Indonesia, with the program “Slavonic Sonata” (look “Slavonic music”).

Performing of the P&L program “Ukrainian piano Music of XVIII-XX centuries” in the same concert hole one year later (both concerts was organized by JakArt International Festival (Reaction of the Indonesian press: the articles “Riabchun warms the night with the lighting  of Ukrainian sound” (Jakarta Post) and “Colored concert from Ukraine” (Evening News).

Iryna follows Scriabin’s way of using of the “Voice of the light”, which is  comparable with the pipe organ registers instrumentation or with the musical ensemble.

The special voice of light score is created by Iryna for each performed song according to the technical possibilities of the stage. It is pretty mobile, sometimes very fluid and completely far from the formal using of the colors in connection to the pitch of the sound.

Iryna Riabchun considered the purposes of using the colored light with the classical musical songs as:

 1.Increasing common atmosphere of the reproduced image and marking the hermeneutic specifics of interpretation;

2.Marking the structure of the song (3 or 3-5 part structures, Rondo, etc.)

3.Marking the tonal structure of the song (for example in Sonata Allegro form);

4.Marking the aesthetic differences of musical sounds, intervals, harmonies and tonalities;

5.Visualisation of the musical performance enriching it with the elements of  the painting and theatre, using special stage attires; 

4.Creating the common dramaturgy of the performance.

Meanwhile Iryna is making her own researches in the issue of colored audition.  In  June  2002 she held collective test of colored audition during her Master class “Children, colors and music” in Jakarta International Music School. The results of the test for one more time had confirmed synesthetic possibilities of human hearing. The summary and analysis of the synesthetic tests inspired Iryna for writing brief theses  “Colored audition as synesthetic ability of human hearing. Experience of Solo piano and colored light performances” in the Department of Post graduated course (Musical Psychology) in National Music Academy of Ukraine (Kiev).

Iryna is very grateful to her P&L assistants:

Olena Dobrovolska (Ukraine), Annelies Klug Pдhler (Germany), Charita Chandra, Norman Gozaly, Meggy Aprianto (Indonesia)

as well as to the

administration and Electric team of Ukrainian Children’s Music Academy and personally M.Slavutska and W.Regylska; 

The Embassy of Netherlands in Indonesia, staff and administration of Erasmus Huis and of JakArt festival for the support and help.  

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Sound track: Scriabin sonata N4.op.30. Andante. Piano – Iryna Riabchun

Photo: P&L performance “Slavonic Sonata” (up - with the light – assistants, down - audience) Erasmus Huis, Jakarta, Indonesia. Author - Kim Gey Sun (Korea)__________