Poster for the 10th anniversary concert for the association Brassage Musique in Paris, France, which took place on April 10th, 2015. The concert featured music with an American theme, notably Leonard Bernstein's Symphonic Suite from West Side Story, and Johan de Meij's Symphony No. 2 "The Big Apple".
The overal design was inspired by Wes Wilson's posters for Bill Graham's events at the Filmore Auditorium in San Francisco in the 1960's. The design features a decomposition of the flag of the United States of America : 50 stars representing the 50 states, and 13 red and white stripes representing the 13 British colonies that declared independance from the Kingdom of Great Britain and became the first states in the Union.
In the interest of readability, the pschedelic typography has been modified and evolved with respect to Wilson's original lettering, which was often so stretched and distorted as to be unreadable.
Wilson's posters generally feature a central figure symbolic of the era, often a semi-nude woman. Not that the French shy away from nudity in advertising, but here the challenge was to find an equivalent center piece that would provide a link between the main American theme and the association's two orchestras : the brass band and the wind band. The sousaphone is a salute to the great American composer and conductor John Philip Sousa, references the wind instruments in both ensembles, and also pays tribute the American marching bands, which are what brass bands are to Great Britain and what wind bands are to France.
Thanks for watching.
