Mark Dellas and the Buffalo Philharmonic

Mark Dellas and the Buffalo Philharmonic, on view in the M&T lobby and organized by the Burchfield Penney Art Center, recognizes the 20^th Anniversary of the Buffalo Philharmonic’s world-renowned music director, Joann Falletta.  

Mark Dellas, a Buffalo-based photographer typically shoots portrait and landscape work with a highly distinct style: a specific aesthetic, a fashion-forward interest.  His work represents the fashion of things—people, places, groups—and it captures the essence of his subjects, telling their best stories. In this case the focus of his work are the musicians, the maestro, and the Kleinhans Music Hall.

Rather than viewing the orchestra as an audience sees them—as a group of performers on a stage—these photographs provide a singular, highly personal look at some of the BPO’s players. It’s the photographic equivalent of a musical solo—drawing out the musician’s personality in portraits reflective of Dellas’s unique manner of photography. In his work, the people he has photographed are not just great representations but are also unmistakably made his own.

M&T Bank has a longstanding relationship with the Burchfield Penney Art Center. Annually, M&T Bank is one of the museum’s most significant sponsors and overall is a community leader in corporate support of arts and culture. M&T and the Center have collaborated on collecting and exhibiting artwork since 1987.

Over the last 20 years the collaboration has taken the form of a satellite gallery here at M&T Center at One Fountain Plaza. Specially curated exhibitions of Western New York art are organized to bring the arts of the region into the daily experience of the workday and are open and accessible to the public.