Sight and Sound

With New Art / New Music, Rice’s Moody Center and the Shepherd School turn visual art into a catalyst for musical experimentation.

Photo of violinist performing during an opening exhibit at Moody Center For The Arts
The New Art / New Music series began 15 years ago and has been hosted and sponsored by the Moody Center for the Arts since 2018. Photo by Zeisha Bennett

By Tracey Rhoades

Each semester, a new kind of artistic conversation unfolds inside the Moody Center for the Arts. New Art / New Music, a project supported by the Moody Experience, pairs the center’s current exhibition with a program of original musical compositions by students from the Shepherd School of Music. Each student composer responds directly to the visual works on view, translating color, form and movement into sound.

The interdisciplinary project began 15 years ago as a platform for student composers and musicians to create and perform original works, and it’s been hosted and sponsored by the Moody since 2018. “New Art / New Music encapsulates the collaborative philosophy that defines Rice,” says Jaylin Vinson ’25, who formalized the concert series as a Shepherd School student. “For over a decade, it has invited a dialogue between the visual and sonic arts, inviting composers, performers and audiences to share in an experience that could only happen through this synergy.”

Photo of Moody Center for the Arts
"There is no set ‘stage,’ so audiences and performers are on the same plane, creating a much more unique and personal experience compared to a traditional concert setting,” says Angela Ortiz. Photo by Michael Maltzan

And the synergy doesn’t stop once the performance ends. A cello quartet, “Shimmer!,” written by Vinson for the New Art / New Music exhibition in fall 2021, has entertained audiences well beyond Rice. “It’s been professionally recorded by Rice University and performed over a dozen times at venues across the United States, including in New York, Virginia and California,” says Vinson. “It remains my most frequently performed work to date, all sparked by the inspiration I found through this program and the Moody Center’s incredible environment.”

This year’s student organizer, Angela Ortiz ’26, affirms that the program offers a chance for meaningful artistic dialogue, as well as the novel experience of performing in a gallery space. “There is no set ‘stage,’ so audiences and performers are on the same plane, creating a much more unique and personal experience compared to a traditional concert setting.”

Each performance is free and open to the public, often drawing upwards of 100 students, faculty, alumni and members of Houston’s arts community. The most recent edition drew inspiration from “Bio Morphe,” an exhibition exploring the intersection of technology, biology and art. Student composers created new works that echoed the exhibition’s living, shape-shifting energy, from a solo work by Ethan Resnik ’26 performed on the mbira (also known as the African thumb piano) to a bassoon quartet composed by William Jae ’27.

The series underscores Rice’s collaborative spirit and its commitment to hands-on, interdisciplinary learning. For both performers and audiences, it’s a reminder that art and music belong to the same creative ecosystem, expanding ideas of how audiences can experience both.

 

From the Winter 2026 issue of Rice Magazine