Peggy Gyulai : Biography

Peggy Gyulai creates oil paintings which are interpretations of the sound and poetry of music. Her paintings expressing music and musical influences are in 70 collections in the US and Europe including SAP America, Neiman Marcus, ARCO Chemical, Royal Bank of Ontario, The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts and Vanguard Funds. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Biological Anthropology, she studied painting and sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Her recent solo exhibition "16 Atmospheres for piano and paint" was created in collaboration with pianist Rieko Aizawa for Pentiment Gallery in Philadelphia in 2004. In 2003 her series of paintings "Dreams and Prayers" was exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Jewish Art. The paintings were inspired by masterworks of Jewish cantorial music as well as contemporary music by Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov. In 2002, her exhibition "Parallel Play: New Paintings, New Music" was inspired by contemporary classical composers John Adams,Tina Davidson, Jeremy Gill, and Evan Solot at Pentimenti Gallery.

Gyulai was artist-in-residence at the Philadelphia Museum of Art during 2002 in the Art Futures program. She has presented her work and methods to audiences at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, the Philadelphia Orchestra Education Department and to arts education conferences.

In 1999-2000 Gyulai created a series of 6 paintings for performances of The Philadelphia Orchestra at the Academy of Music, in celebration of their centennial season. She co-hosted a youth program for the Philadelphia Orchestra integrating visual and musical composition. Her work has been featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Style magazine, City Paper and WRTI's "Tempo" magazine and on WRTI broadcasts.

SInce 2002, Gyulai has created multimedia commissions for symphony performances: "Numina" a world-premiere video production for Jeremy Gill's composition for orchestra, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia; video for concert perfomances of Bach's "Brandenberg Concerto No 3", Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks" and Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik"; Motion color design for Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in f for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia; Visual director for COOP's American Visions concert of Aaron Copland's "Music for the Theatre" and John Adams' "Chamber Symphony", Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia; Real-time onstage digital visuals for the "Chaos" introduction to Haydn's Creation Oratorio for the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and a performance honoring the American Symphony Orchestra League, National Conference 2002.