Mondays are blue, a C major is yellow and even a car door closing can conjure up a rainbow of colour … but everything can change, says Kirsty Matheson.
The Govan-based musician and artist has synaesthesia, a rare condition in which the senses intermingle.
For Kirsty, it means she can “see” sound, something she describes as like “opening a door in my mind to find a world of different colours” when she listens to music.
Kirsty Matheson is a freelance double bassist (Image: Newsquest) I didn’t realise I had it for a long time – I even remember being told about synaesthesia in music at school and thinking, that sounds cool,” she says, smiling.
“No two people with synaesthesia see things the same way, and for me, it’s dynamic. The colours move.
“I remember playing Verdi’s Requiem and the conductor asked the choir for a D flat and I wanted to shout out ‘Prussian blue’.”
(Image: Colin Mearns/Newsquest)
She grins. “I mean, I didn’t, because I didn’t want everyone to think I was a bit weird. Also, by the bass part of the music, the D flat was now duck egg blue …”
In her Harmony Row studio (“I know, the address is very appropriate,” she laughs) Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony sits splendidly on the floor, bold sweeps of dark and light. On the easel, there is Mahler’s 9th – the fourth movement, famous for its dramatic ending, dropping almost into silence; and Kirsty has just completed her latest work, a beautiful triptych of images commissioned by Martyn Brabbins, who conducted Scottish Opera’s production of Leoš Janáček’s The Makropulos Affair earlier this year.
Kirsty, who is a freelance double bassist, played in the orchestra for the production.
“Martyn was walking past me in the interval after the second act, and he said, ‘I’d like you to paint the opera’,” she recalls. “I couldn’t believe it. I was so excited I’m sure I didn’t play so well in the third act.”
Martyn Brabbins conducting the orchestra of Scottish Opera in The Makropolus Affair (Image: Mihaela Bodlovic)
Martyn explains: “Leoš Janáček’s music is at once unique, and utterly compelling. As a conductor, bringing to life The Makropulos Affair with Scottish Opera was truly life affirming.”
He adds: “For Kirsty, being in the orchestra gave her the opportunity to experience the music in an absorbing and vivid way. She has produced a beautiful triptych of paintings, bound together by the genius of Janáček.”
(Image: Colin Mearns/Newsquest)
Kirsty grew up in Aberdeenshire, where a visiting cello teacher inspired her to take up the instrument.
“He came to our school when I was in primary four, and he said the word pizzicato,” says Kirsty. “I thought – that’s cool, I want to be able to do whatever that is.
“So I went home and asked my parents if I could start playing cello and they said yes. I moved on to double bass later on.”
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After moving to America, where she met her husband (Darren Campbell, operations manager at Perth Theatre), the couple moved back to Scotland and settled in Glasgow.
They have two sons, Callum, 16, and Magnus, 13. Both boys are musical – Callum plays the double bass, Magnus the French horn.
Kirsty has been a freelance player since 2014, and she also teaches at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
“People ask me if I am a musician who paints, or a painter who plays music, but I think it’s both,” she says. “I teach, play and paint, I’m not one thing or the other. I like to have a few lives.”
In her bright studio, busy with completed paintings and works in progress, Kirsty admits explaining synaesthesia is not always easy.
“My paintings are not an interpretation of the music, they are not inspired by the music – they are what the music looks like to me when I hear it,” she says, slowly.
“For The Makropulos Affair, shape was as important as colour. I hadn’t seen the production, so I wasn’t influenced by the set design, for example.
“I am painting the music.”
It’s not just music which conjures up colours in her brain, she adds.
“It’s numbers, letters, people’s voices, days of the week – even the sound of a car door shutting creates colours for me,” she explains.
“It can be an interesting world to live in, but I can switch it off, I’m lucky. I feel blessed.”
Scottish Opera’s new season begins in the autumn and includes the world premiere of The Great Wave, based on the life of the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, plus Puccini’s La bohème and Sir Thomas Allen’s acclaimed production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.