When art meets music, the result is  the Phonoréalistes, aka local ukulele wielding folk duo, the Cedar Tavern Singers.
Mary-Anne McTrowe and Daniel Wong have been playing  their unusual brand of  folk music  inspired directly by the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery and its extensive art collection since 2006.
“We don’t just write about the art gallery,” Wong said.
“We also write about the Arthur Erickson  building and sculptures on campus,” McTrowe added, noting the Canadian architect who designed the university provides very inspirational  subject matter.
“And the university collection is well known across Canada, just not  as well known in Lethbridge. We just wanted to bring the people behind the scenes a little bit,” she continued adding she became interested in the collection while earning her  BFA  back in 1998. Wong earned his BFA in 2003 and shared her enthusiasm.
Canadian Artist Sorel Etrog’s  Expo ’67 attraction, Sculpture of Moses, located in the foyer of the fine arts building,  and one of the subjects of their 2009 EP “Mandate For Research,” inspired the duo.
It was built in 1967 and came to the University of Lethbridge in 1968.
“The base started to crawl and there was the danger that it could fall. In 2003 it started to shift,” McTrowe added.
The duo were asked to write a few songs about the University of Lethbridge Art Gallery.
“I wanted to learn an instrument   none of my friends were playing, so I chose the ukulele,” McTrowe said, adding the pair use a variety of non-traditional instruments like glockenspiel, tambourine and  washboard.
“We use a lot of non-professional instruments,” Wong added, noting they don’t play live very often, though they played Henotic back in August with a couple other “non-traditional” local acts. As expected, because much of their music is inspired by art, many of their public performances take place in art galleries like the SAAG and Bowman Arts Centre.
“We knew each other before we  started playing music together. We just pooled our resources and research together and put these ideas into song,” Wong said adding they got together at an artists retreat in Banff to write their first CD.
 “After that we just kept working together. And we’ll keep doing it and see how it goes,” McTrowe said, noting the duo approaches  their lyrics with a quite a bit of irony and humour as they look at people’s personal perspectives of art and approach to looking at art as well as discussing it.
“Our songs aren’t meant to lecture people about art, but how people look at art,” she said.
“It’s a mixture of sincerity and sarcasm. And we never run out of material seeing as art history is always happening,” Wong added.
“We make fun of how art is perceived,” he said.
They have since released three EPs and  two full length CDs. However work on their third full length CD was disrupted by a fire several months ago  near their studio, next to the Taj restaurant.
“We had a lot of equipment there. We lost some art but none of the musical instruments were irreparably damaged,” Wong said.
A version of this story is in the December 2009 edition of Bridge Magazine