Claude Debussy, a friend of Monet, wanted to be a painter. Instead, he used music to create evocative, beautiful pictures. His contemporary Maurice Ravel turned the miraculous seascapes of Impressionist painters into sparkling piano pieces. In Vienna, Arnold Schoenberg, also a serious painter, wrote music that pushed traditional boundaries to their limit. In his opera Wozzeck, Alban Berg created a character that embodies Expressionism. Intimately connected to the cultural currents around them, these groundbreaking composers turned Impressionism and Expressionism into sound. During this ArtBreak, explore these key movements in visual art and music with Dr. Zaide Pixley.

Zaide Pixley holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Michigan. As a member of the faculty at Kalamazoo College, she taught a wide range of courses, from music theory and history to rock and roll. She is President of the Board of Trustees of the Gilmore Piano Festival and the author (with Jane Rooks Ross) of 100 Years of Great Music, celebrating the centenary of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra. Dr. Pixley is deeply interested in how music reflects, responds to, and shapes its cultural and social context, as well as in the beauty and power of the music itself.