This blog was written by LeCroy & Milligan Associates, who facilitated a focus group following CAFE’s Art and Music Through a Humanities Lens event on March 29, 2025.
What happens when art, music, and deep reflection come together on a Saturday afternoon inTempe? Magic. And humanity.
LeCroy & Milligan recently had the privilege to evaluate a vibrant and soul-stirring humanities
experience titled “Art and Music Through a Humanities Lens,” a collaborative event presented
by the Central Arizona Flute Ensemble, the Tempe Artists Guild, and Arizona Humanities.
Imagine a room slowly filling with the soft hum of anticipation, then… the first notes of a flute.
Not just one flute, but a chorus—each with its own story, timbre, and texture. One by one, the
flutists introduced their instruments, offering the audience a musical tour through soundscapes
that spanned centuries and continents.
But this wasn’t just a concert.
This was a humanities laboratory, where over 50 attendees explored the essence of human
creativity through melody and brushstroke, rhythm and color, timbre and texture.
Participants were invited to become curators of their own experience. With reflection cards in
hand, they examined five musical elements—melody, harmony, rhythm, form, and timbre—and
five visual elements—line, shape, form, color, and texture. They didn’t just observe. They
experienced.
The event began with a striking painting that evoked the 1930s—an old gas station scene
rendered in expressive color. A humanities scholar guided the audience, peeling back layers of
the canvas to reveal the artist’s inner world: “It’s about memory and time… a personal reflection
of what once was.”
And then—like a time machine—flute music emerged, echoing the same themes. As the melody
danced, you could feel it: memory, nostalgia, humanity.
Three more paintings followed. Three more musical interpretations. And with each pairing,
attendees were pulled deeper into a living dialogue between sight and sound, past and present,
feeling and thought.
As evaluators, we weren’t there just to watch—we came to listen, to understand. After the
session, we gathered twelve participants in a focus group to explore the experience’s impact. We
asked:
• What new things did you learn?
• What surprised or moved you?
• What made you feel more connected?
The responses? Pure gold.
“It gave my brain a rest.”
“It opened my imagination.”“The music matched the paintings.”
“I saw the ad but this is amazing.”
“I felt more human afterwards.”
Our full evaluation will combine these insights with participant surveys to assess the reach,
relevance, and resonance of the event. But if one thing is clear already, it’s this:
When art and music are framed through a humanities lens, they don’t just entertain—they
awaken.
Arizona Humanities’ mission is to build a just and civil society by exploring shared human
experiences. This event didn’t just live up to that mission—it sang it, painted it, and invited
every person in the room to feel it.
And in that space—among flutes, colors, and reflections—we were all reminded of something
simple yet profound:
To be human is to create, to feel, and to connect.
