Bozeman Artist Jack Schnepf Brings Live Painting to Symphony Finale
BOZEMAN, Mont. — The Bozeman Symphony’s season finale, Sounds of America III: Appalachian Spring, on June 13 and 14, will offer audiences more than a powerful musical experience. It will also feature the live creation of an original work of art by Bozeman multidisciplinary artist Jack Schnepf.
Throughout the concert weekend, Schnepf will create a large-scale abstract painting onstage as the orchestra performs, transforming the performances into a dynamic collaboration between music and visual art. The work will become part of his ongoing Entanglement Series, a collaborative body of work exploring the invisible connections among people, systems, ideas, and the natural world.
Audience members will watch Schnepf paint across three 3-by-4-foot panels during performances of John Adams’ rhythmically charged The Chairman Dances and Roy Harris’ monumental Symphony No. 3. During intermission, the artwork will move to the lobby, where patrons will be invited to write something they find beautiful about America.
The painting will then return to the stage as Schnepf continues refining it during Aaron Copland’s beloved Appalachian Spring, a work that captures the optimism and resilience of early America. After the concert’s triumphant finale, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s exhilarating 1812 Overture, the work will be displayed in the lobby for audiences to view.
For Schnepf, the project is deeply personal. Describing himself as someone with “an internal love of art and music,” he immersed himself in the concert repertoire in preparation for the performances, studying the emotional and expressive qualities of each piece. He also plans to attend orchestra rehearsals during the week leading up to the concert, incorporating elements from the musicians themselves, including items such as sheet music fragments or broken strings, directly into the artwork.
Schnepf first became interested in collaborating with the Symphony after attending its Carnival of the Nearly Extinct Animals concert last fall, which paired music with original artwork depicting endangered species. The experience resonated deeply with him, highlighting the powerful connection between science, music, and visual art while celebrating the beauty and fragility of the natural world.
“My goal is for the audience to experience our shared human connection through the art, as a reminder of our shared joy and hope,” Schnepf said.
Schnepf's work explores connection, empathy, and our capacity to understand ourselves and the world around us. His paintings range from purely abstract to representational, using animals, color, and mark-making as different ways into the same questions. His practice is grounded in optimism and the belief that art can help us experience what we hold in common.
His artistic practice began during recovery from a life-threatening illness and evolved into a sustained exploration of human experience and interconnectedness. As the first artist-in-residence at QCORE at Montana State University, Schnepf found inspiration in conversations surrounding quantum computing and human connection, ideas that ultimately gave rise to the Entanglement Series. His work has since been exhibited throughout the western United States and internationally, while his live painting performances continue to invite audiences into the creative process itself.
The collaboration promises to make Sounds of America III: Appalachian Spring not only a celebration of American music but also an immersive artistic experience that invites audiences to reflect on connection, creativity, and shared hope.
May 27, 2026
Contact: Peggy Stebbins
Office: 406.585.9774
peggy@bozemansymphony.org