Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, BSO 2017-18

When I asked for one word to describe the creative direction of this promotion, the answer was "riot" — like the one that took place in the audience at the controversial premiere of Igor Stravinsky's ballet in 1914. Despite being over a century old, this piece still sounds raucous and modern. Circles are a recurring motif, both in the original ballet as choreographed by Vaslav Najinsky and in the names of the movements, i.e. "Spring Rounds" and "Mystic Circles of the Young Girls." In an attempt to capture the energy of the piece, I scribbled on a piece of paper with several colors of markers, scanned the scribbles, inverted the image and increased the saturation in Photoshop to bump up the vibrancy, and used a layer mask like a scratchboard to reveal the chaos below. For the word mark, I chose to use our brand sans-serif in bold, lowercase italics to both contrast the complex activity of the scribbles and reflect the forward-thinking nature of the music.