Niles Luther

NEW YORK CITY! What a joy it was to return. I felt that I could once again breathe; there was oxygen in my lungs! As I walked the street people did not stare at me as they do in Middle America, ogling in what I can only guess to be a mix of awe and horror. To fit within the fabric of the cityscape, and blend in without altering who I am, gave me a profound sense of joy. https://nilesluther.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Results-for-feb-2023-1-of-2-HDR.mp4?height=200&width=200&autoplay=true&lo...

Baltimore, where do I start! I’m on the flight back to New York as I write this, entering a three week break while the tour goes to Chicago. I’m officially overwhelmed with the amount of paintings I have selected for the collection; for the last eight paintings I have composed nothing as of yet. These selected works did not arise from eight separate cities… no, instead of abiding by my arbitrary and now defunct rule of selecting one painting per museum per city, I have chosen multiple paintin...

What a whirlwind of emotion this past week. I wish to share, but my main thought right now as I type is that it’s hard to write genuinely knowing these journal entries will be pressed to the blockchain and publicized in perpetuity. Daunting. I guess the solution in the face of that is to just be sincere. If my vision manifests and art music succeeds I imagine these entries will be read and studied in the way that Brahms’ or Schumann’s letters were. It’s reassuring to know that I can’t be emba...

Dayton, Ohio. I was very excited to discover that I could use the hotel TV as a second display via HDMI. Other than that, and my wonderful morning runs, my memory of this cities felicities quickly fades…Studio setup at a Courtyard Marriott in Dayton, OHPainting tl;drCITY: Dayton, OHMUSEUM: Dayton Art InstitutePAINTING: Allegory of Summer and WinterARTIST: Giovanni Battista PittoniOBSERVATION DATE: Jan 20, 2023Music tl;drCITY: New YorkLOCATION: 72nd & ParkAUDIO SKETCH: Summer and Winter, for P...

St. Louis! Read on for my reflections on Love and Adultery… this one is long, but well worth it.Dear reader, In November of 2022 I deactivated the majority of my social media accounts so as to remove myself from the constant need for external approval, and focus on self-improvement. While mirror.xyz is most definitely not instagram, I hope I can maintain the authenticity and candidness with which I’ve been documenting my life on the road, despite the fact that I now have a small audience (tha...

A note to my new subscribers! Thanks for taking the time to check out my project, and follow along as I traverse the country. It means a lot to me that you are all interested in my compositional process and the artwork that inspires me. These next couple of entries are still a backlog from earlier in the tour — they are notes I journaled and never intended to publish, so they are my genuine, authentic, and often vulnerable thoughts! I hope these musings cause you to feel or learn something. D...

Dear reader, Milwaukee! I’m very excited to share this city with you, particularly because my expectations for what I would find here were far exceeded. I’ll get into that in a bit. First, some casual updates. My studio is traveling well; everything feels dialed in. On Tuesday mornings I head to the theater and bring back my gear to be setup and calibrated. I break it all down again and bring it back to the theater on Sunday evening, just before our final show in each city.Studio setup and my...

Dear reader, I hope you have been well! Not that there has been much time since the last entry - I’m slowly making my way through the backlog of entries from my notes app, so the next several mirror posts will still be from the past. When I have fully caught up, and the entries are published contemporaneously, of course I will let you know. Onward we travel to Pittsburgh PA, a city that I’m afraid to admit, is a challenge to remember. While life on tour has normalized, so too has its difficul...

Dear reader, We are back for more art adventures in America! On to Providence RI, a city which I quite enjoyed for its excellent restaurants and the beautiful Woonasquatucket River which runs through the city center. https://nilesluther.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Results-for-providence-4-of-5-HDR.mp4?height=200&width=200&autoplay=true&loop=true&muted=true&controls=truePainting tl;drCITY: Providence, RIMUSEUM: RISD MuseumPAINTING: Banks of a River Dominated in the Distance by HillsARTIST: ...

Dear reader, The tour has continued on to Philadelphia. It is in this city that the concept of Here on Tour came to me, I mobilized my studio, and began to score these paintings with zeal and fervency.Painting tl;drCITY: Philadelphia, PAMUSEUM: Philadelphia Museum of ArtPAINTING: Seated Pink NudeARTIST: Henri MatisseOBSERVATION DATE: Nov 10, 2022Music tl;drCITY: Pittsburgh, PASINEPRINT: Omni William Penn HotelAUDIO SKETCH: On the Mother, for MatisseCOMPOSER: Niles LutherCREATION DATE: Nov 24,...

Dear reader, Welcome back to my tour within a tour, where I set out to score paintings found in museums around the country. The resulting compositions will be recorded with the orchestra I’m on tour with, and pressed to the blockchain as NFTs. These entries will document my process from observation to tokenization. Lets begin this adventure in earnest, with the work that inspired it all!Painting tl;drCITY: Cleveland, OHMUSEUM: Cleveland Museum of ArtPAINTING: Mount Starr King, Yosemite, 1866A...

On the PersonGreetings. My name is Niles Luther. I am a classically trained cellist & composer currently on the National Tour of the Les Misérables broadway show. Performing nightly in this show provides stability while I pursue my deeper musical interest: Art music, or bespoke scores that attempt to transmedialize the narrative content of visual art into music. This article aims to provide a brief introduction to a collection of Art Music NFTs that I’ve been developing since October of 2022 ...