Last year saw the release of the documentary film The Price of Everything, which undertook a deep exploration of the marketplace for contemporary art — in particular, how a piece’s price affects the way it is received and perceived by an observer.

It resonated with musician Karl Silveira, a jazz trombonist and composer who recently graduated from the University of Toronto’s music school and has developed a keen interest in exploring the potential relationships between visual art and jazz music.

“I found it especially interesting that some works were beyond these discussions of value, even for art curators and collectors,” Silveira says of the film. “Their innate value purely as art was completely undeniable.”

While in New York earlier this year, Silveira, 34, met prolific trombonist, composer and visual artist Dick Griffin, and they found themselves in a lengthy discussion about how Griffin’s process of making visual art has been inspired by his jazz journey. “I’ve since been very curious about exploring ways of incorporating a visual-art component into my live performances, to allow new avenues for contextualizing music, not just in performance but also in relation to another artistic medium,” Silveira says.

It’s a concept that’s still in its infancy, but Silveira is hungry to pursue it. This August, he held a residency at the Rex, playing every Thursday with his quintet — featuring core members Allison Au, Matt Newton, Dan Fortin and Nico Dann — where he debuted his own original music. (The visual component remains in development.)

Meanwhile, now that he’s completed his time as a student at U of T, where he studied with teachers like Andrew Downing, Geoff Young and Kelly Jefferson, Silveira is returning to the school this year as a private trombone teacher for undergrad jazz students.

We asked this former participant in our Jazzology program to tell us more about his vision of marrying jazz with visual art, how his educators helped him to be comfortable thinking critically about his own compositions, and where he wants to go with his music career in the future.