Ears to the Earth is an idea that I’ve had for a while, which was simply curating a series of concerts to take place annually on Earth Day. The works performed on any given event would include a combination of pre-existing works and newly commissioned works.
Coincidentally, the year I decided to begin organizing the first concert was the same year of the Covid-19 pandemic. I put the concert on the backburner and decided that another way to facilitate conversations around music and art-making in response to the climate crisis was through the podcast medium. (Side bar: I continue to remember how differently the air felt/looked and how frequently I heard birds singing during those initial few weeks when absolutely no vehicles were operating. It seems we were so eager to “get back to normal” despite openly acknowledging how fractured our definition of “normal” had become).
Keeping the same title, the Ears to the Earth podcast was a way for me to talk to composers whose general oeuvre evoke or are inspired by places in nature. Many of these composers are part of a larger network of like-minded composers across the world known as the Landscape Composers Network. While I haven’t produced a podcast in quite some time, you can access the library of episodes on Spotify and Apple podcasts.
*Note: I am currently in the process of transcribing the interviews for greater accessibility, however, I don’t currently have a concrete timeline for when those will be available.
Below you’ll find the links to two videos. The first is the first annual concert, which took place virtually in 2021. The concert was comprised of pre-recorded video performances stitched together to create a full program. The final two pieces were the pieces commissioned for this event: Frank Nawrot’s They Have Names for solo percussion and Daijana Wallace’s Reduce, Reuse, Recycle for cello and percussion. I was very pleased to be able to perform this piece a second time with James at the 2022 Percussive Arts Society International Convention.
The second video is a live stream from 2022. This was the first Ears to the Earth performance that we were able to have in-person, which took place at the Cider Gallery in Lawrence, KS. The commissioned pieces from this year included Jenni Brandon’s Tempestas for clarinet and percussion (performed by Dr. Stacia Fortune, clarinet, and Dr. Ryan Pearson, percussion) and blue drag on sterile canvas for solo percussion by Nicholas Tran.
The third performance of Ears to the Earth took place in 2023 at the Spencer Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Kansas. This was a particularly special program because it allowed me to collaborate with a bunch of composers/performers that I had met while attending the 2022 Yarn/Wire Institute. Composers included David Acevedo, Hannah A. Barnes, Isaac Barszo, Kyujung Lim, Qiujiang “Levi” Lu, and Trevor Van De Velde and additional performers included Kate Sloat on harp and Tom Fabing on percussion.
I am especially pleased to be performing several of these new works at the 2023 New Music Gathering in Portland, Oregon.
*Videos to be posted soon.
I hope you’ll continue to follow this journey as it evolves with every subsequent iteration and I if this is a project that you’d like to be a part of, please don’t hesitate to reach out!