Workshops and Retreats

 

Music and Nature

Deep Listening ®

Ecomusicosophy - Listening to the Wisdom of the Earth

Collaborative Arts Workshops

Sustainability and the Arts

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Courses

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Ecomusicology

Throughout history people have artistically expressed relationships with nature and as the environmental movement has grown, musical expressions have increased as well. Ecomusicology explores diverse sonic expression in relationship to cultural and natural environments. 
This process can illuminate connections between humans and the natural world. This course will introduce aspects of the growing fields of ecomusicology including: composers and landscape, soundscapes, sustainability education through music, relationships between environmental and social justice, and activism through music. Throughout the course students will create improvisations and compositions as a response to the different “fields” of ecomusicology.

 

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Interdisciplinary Collaborations in the Arts

This course explores artistic expression through musical responses to poetry, dance, painting, film, photography and other art forms. Through guided listening, viewing videos, discussion, and hands-on experimentation, students will integrate art forms and create performances. Through collaboration with other artists, students will compose and improvise pieces as a way to understand how artistic synthesis contributes to ways that the arts speak in our society.

 

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Music, Spirit and Transformation

The desire to connect spiritually through music is virtually universal, but music also communicates that which is beyond language in both sacred and secular settings. Western Culture’s 21’st century influence has shown that the pervasiveness of music and emphasis on entertainment can cause us not to always recognize its power or source. This course will explore the concept of transformational power in music using musical examples from various world religions and cultures. The main goal of the course is to explore meaning and purpose in music and discover commonalities in how people in different cultures seek spiritual connections musically. Students will gain an understanding of cultural significance in music and begin to see ways that it transforms ordinary experience.  Students will also learn to compare and contrast the ways that people think about music and apply these insights to their own creative lives.

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Improvisational Springboards

This course for improvisers or composers is based on conceptual improvisation, compositional improvisation, and communication in listening. Models from classical, jazz and non-western musics are explored including techniques such as counterpoint, pedal point, phrasing, ostinato, drone, space, melodic development, creating anticipation, conducted improvisation, free improvisation, polyphony, color mixing and conversational duets.