Live Personal Soundtrack with Giacomo Fiore

Chris Kallmyer and Mark Allen's Live Personal Soundtrack, a conceptual art piece from the Soundtracks exhibit at SFMOMA, involves an individual patron being serenaded by an electronic guitarist as they wander the permanent collection on the second floor of the museum.

The duo are sonically connected via headphones which feels oddly intimate since they are sharing a musical experience that nobody around them can hear.

Different musicians are in residence on different days, Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 3 PM, and last Saturday my friend Louisa Spier and I were treated to the luxury musicianship of Giacomo Fiore, a classical guitarist who teaches at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

The museumgoer leads the guitarist to various works of art who then improvises a musical reaction, and it is a strange, slightly telepathic experience, where I found myself noticing new details in familiar paintings on account of the sonic mind meld.

For some reason, the guitarist has been hidden in a stairwell in an unpopulated section of the second floor, but ask around and you will eventually find the place to sign up. Highly recommended, and if you happen to stumble across an afternoon featuring Giacomo Fiore, you are very lucky.