Beethoven Walks is an installation of sight and sound created by Yellow Barn Director Seth Knopp. Originally conceived in the spring of 2020, during our collective isolation, Knopp engaged walking trails near his home in Southern Vermont with reproductions of Beethoven’s sketches and leaves from his autograph manuscript.

The installation vivified Beethoven’s practice for those walking the path, allowing his music to comingle with sights and sounds from the surrounding forest. 

“Beethoven’s process is visually staggering,” says Knopp. “A kaleidoscopic embodiment of determination and vulnerability, it begs the question, in the words of the great Beethoven scholar, Maynard Solomon, of whether it ‘documents the path by which the work is created or by which it is discovered’. Beethoven Walks at the Nasher serves a universal need to better understand our humanity through music and the beauty of our world.”

Beethoven Walks will open on February 5, 2023 in conjunction with the Soundings concert “Beethoven in Search of Creation”. Artistic Director Seth Knopp will introduce his installation at a pre-concert conversation beginning at 6:15 p.m. Thereafter the installation can be accessed Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. with regular museum admission.

Soundings: New Music at the Nasher is made possible by generous support from Kay and Elliot Cattarulla. Additional support is provided by Sally Warren and Jeff Jackson, The Rea Charitable Trust, and Paul Hunter (in memoriam) and Kathleen Cook-Hunter.