Orlando Sings Choral Festival features The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

Orlando Sings Symphonic Chorus and the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra present Visionary Light!

The final program of the Orlando Sings Choral Festival includes three works inspired by historically significant figures of the Renaissance. Ottorino Respighi’s colorful Botticelli Triptych was inspired by three Botticelli paintings: La Primavera (Spring), L’Adorazione dei Magi (The Adoration of the Magi), and La nascita di Venere (The Birth of Venus).

Utilizing the latest in video syncing technology, Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks are brought to life through his words and drawings in an unforgettable multimedia concert experience created for choir, orchestra, and video projections. As the composer who is the creative force behind both the music and visual component, Jocelyn Hagen designed the work so that the music serves as the foundation for the film instead of it functioning as purely a supporting musical soundtrack.

Hagen includes Da Vinci’s intricate handwriting and stunningly beautiful sketches as a visual component to this piece. As a writer, da Vinci wrote from right to left, backwards, as if in a mirror. These beautifully scribed words scroll above the musicians and add a wonderful texture to the performance. Many sketches in the notebooks are of the human form, corresponding perfectly to his observations on the proportions of the body. Filmmaker Iaac Gale took these images and breathed life into them with a living Vitruvian Man in the fifth movement.