FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Nicky Christensen, Marketing Specialist II
University Museums, Iowa State University
njac@iastate.edu
World Premiere: Sculpture Inspires Original Concerto at Iowa State University
AMES, Iowa — When internationally acclaimed artist Beth Lipman created Hive Mind, her monumental bronze and glass sculpture celebrating Iowa State University's legacy of innovation, composer and conductor Dr. Michael Golemo heard music. On Friday, February 13, University Museums and the Department of Music and Theatre present the world premiere of Golemo's three-movement concerto inspired by Lipman's art, performed by the 60-member Iowa State University Wind Ensemble at Simon Estes Music Hall.
The collaboration transforms Lipman's visual language into sound—what Golemo describes as intensely "colorful" music. Bronze becomes anvils, cowbells, and powerful brass evoking weight and permanence. Glass becomes triangles, bell trees, muted brass, and flutes suggesting transparency and fragility. The third movement captures the collaborative energy of the "hive mind" itself—the gathering and binding of knowledge that defines both Lipman's artistic process and Iowa State's research mission.
"This is a special tribute that should be colorful and dynamic," said Golemo, who is in his 27th year conducting at Iowa State.
The concerto was commissioned by University Museums in honor of Beverly and Warren Madden, whose combined 65-plus years of service to Iowa State shaped the modern university. Warren served as Senior Vice President for Business and Finance for 50 years, while Beverly was a faculty member and Iowa State's first university-wide Director of Career Planning and Placement Services. Both once clarinetists at Iowa State University, they are honored through featured clarinet solos woven throughout the concerto. In 2025, the Maddens endowed the Warren and Beverly Madden University Museums Director and Chief Curator position held by Pohlman.
Lipman, whose glass still-life compositions appear in collections at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, and Corning Museum of Glass, will speak briefly about her sculpture at the performance, and hear the musical interpretation for the first time alongside the audience. Her eight-foot Hive Mind sculpture, installed in the Anderson Sculpture Garden between Morrill Hall and Beardshear Hall, embeds clear glass objects representing Iowa State's past, present, and future within a bronze form referencing the round hay baler innovation developed by Iowa State professor Wesley Buchele in the 1960s.
Audiences can experience the full scope of Lipman's creative process at the exhibition Beth Lipman: Middle of the Story at the Christian Petersen Art Museum (1017 Morrill Hall), open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. through February 13, with extra hours 6-7:30 p.m. on the evening of the concert. Nearby, Special Collections and University Archives will soon open a complementary exhibition at Parks Library featuring the archival materials that inspired Lipman's research. A Hive Mind maquette will be displayed in the Simon Estes Music Hall lobby, and a reception will follow the performance.
The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free. Parking is available at the Memorial Union Parking Ramp on Lincoln Way, immediately east of Simon Estes Music Hall. For more information, visit museums.iastate.edu.
About Hive Mind
Beth Lipman's Hive Mind contains 52 glass objects embedded within its 3,000-pound bronze hay bale form, each representing significant contributions and innovations developed at Iowa State. After conducting interviews with faculty and staff, visiting laboratories across campus, and working through materials in Special Collections and University Archives, Lipman selected objects that tell the story of ISU's research legacy. The embedded glass elements include a 4-H emblem pin honoring the land-grant mission, imagery of bacterial resistance from the National Institute for Antimicrobial Resistance Research and Education, statistics visualizations including box plots and graphs, computer science artifacts like memory drums and paper tape for running programs, and agricultural innovations like Maytag blue cheese and seed bank samples. Medical breakthroughs appear through coronavirus vaccine imagery and red blood cells, while chemistry is represented by mass spectrometer components, protein peptide helixes, and slow-cooling molecules.
The sculpture also incorporates cultural and social infrastructure through objects like dance programs and fraternal paddles, items connected to George Washington Carver including an indigo dye bottle and handmade vase, Rice Krispie Treats referencing home economics, and engineering components like turbine machinery and microscope lenses. A microphone from KRIB Radio or WOI-TV Station represents communication advances, while objects like the protractor, calculator, and Snedecor statistics book acknowledge the analytical foundations underlying research across disciplines. These 52 elements are positioned throughout the hay bale's front face, back face, left and right sides, top, and underneath surfaces, creating what Lipman describes as layers of time—an interplay between past, present, and future that informs Iowa State's continuing role in research and innovation. The bronze hay bale itself, cast from actual molds of hay, honors Dr. Wesley Buchele's invention of the round hay baler machinery in the mid-1960s while symbolizing the land on which Iowa State sits and the accumulated impact of human ingenuity developed here.
Contact us for these image files:
Hive Mind by Beth Lipman, 2025, photo by Christopher Gannon / Iowa State University
Beth Lipman: Middle of the Story exhibition, photos by Christopher Gannon / Iowa State University
Dr. Michael Golemo and Beth Lipman at the Christian Petersen Art Museum discussing the commission, photo by University Museums
OTHER UPCOMING MUSIC-RELATED MUSEUM-HOSTED EVENTS
On February 11 at 3:10 pm, the free Art Walk: Simon Estes Music Hall invites visitors to explore sculptures and installations in the building that translate rhythm, sound, and performance into visual form, including a painting commissioned for the Department of Music and Theatre. The indoor tour begins in the Simon Estes Music Hall lobby.
In April, the ISU Opera Studio partners with University Museums for Lyrical Forms: Arts on Campus on April 21 at 7:30 pm. Student vocalists will perform a curated selection of pieces, each paired with a different work from Iowa State's Art on Campus Collection, creating an immersive experience where song and sculpture inform one another. The free performance also takes place in Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall.