TY - JOUR TI - A reflection on the sounds of color and light and room of colors DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3474B80 PY - 2014 AB - There have been many compositional attempts to correlate color with music since the end of 19th century. These idiosyncratic attempts ranged from simple artistic metaphor as a compositional process to a phenomenon of involuntary experiences known as synesthesia. Alexander Scriabin added “clavier à lumières” (keyboard with lights) to his orchestral piece Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, Op. 60 (1910) to present his vision of color-music correspondence. Olivier Messiaen applied his synesthetic ability through color chords based on his modes of limited transposition in Couleurs de la cité céleste (Colors of the Celestial City, 1963). Unsuk Chin, a Korean composer widely acclaimed in Europe, expressed the characters of light in Rocaná (Room of Light, 2008) by exploring the different sound effects of each instrumental group. Following an introduction to synesthesia, including the criteria for identifying the phenomenon and a discussion of synesthetic composers, these three works, and my composition “Room of Colors” for orchestra (2012), will be examined as illustrations of the inclusion of color and light in compositional processes. KW - Music KW - Synesthesia KW - Composers KW - Senses and sensation LA - eng ER -