Leeds International Concert Season (LICS) commissioned two Foundation Diploma in Art and Design students to produce illustrations for a recent concert programme.
The brief, arranged in collaboration with the University’s Careers, Enterprise and Employability team, was a commission of seven full-page colour illustrations and small black line drawings to accompany the text and translations in the programme book for a concert held at The Holbeck on 27 February. Izzy Van Dijk was commissioned to produce the main full colour images with Tafsia Dana providing the accompanying black and white sketches. A £1000 fee was split between the two artists.
Izzy submitted a monoprint for the first song of the cycle 'Gute Nacht', and was commissioned to create six further images to be printed throughout the programme. She said:
“I applied to the commission after starting to experiment with monoprinting as part of the course I started in September, never expecting to get it. The experience has been really rewarding and it has been great liaising with people on a project in a professional setting, something I have never done before; I have become more confident in both my work and myself. To anyone who is thinking about taking part in one of the live briefs the University offers I would highly recommend they do so because you never know what opportunities may come out of it!”
Image: Izzy Van Dijk
Tafsia was commissioned to complete a line drawing which depicted human experience and solitude. She told us: “I was absolutely thrilled to be part of this project. It not only gave me an opportunity to share my drawings with an audience but it also gave me experience on how to answer a brief set out by the client as closely as possible.”
Image: Tafsia Dana
Katie Pearce, Principal Music Officer, Leeds International Concert Season said: “LICS had a fantastic experience working with the Careers, Enterprise and Employability team on this open call to commission artwork in response to Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise to help illustrate the texts of the songs. We were incredibly impressed with the range of artistic styles presented and the high quality of the artwork submitted. We had a very hard time choosing between artists, hence why we chose two artists in the end instead or just the one we’d originally envisaged.
“Once we’d chosen the two artists Izzy and Tafsia were a pleasure to work with and both delivered the artwork in plenty of time for the deadline and were professional and a credit to Leeds Arts University at all times. We’ve already been talking here about a project that we would like to work on with Leeds Arts University for next year.”
LICS on Tour is a series on concerts presented by Leeds International Concert Season whilst its home venue, Leeds Town Hall, is closed for refurbishment. The aim of the concerts is to reach audiences new to classical music and to LICS, challenge the conventions of classical music concerts and increase the diversity of the repertoire and artists that LICS programmes.