Submissions for scores and applications for guest artists are open on our website! Click here if you have a score you'd like us to play for our New Music Festival on October 15th-16th, 2022, and click here if you're interested in performing a 30-minute set on one of the concerts. The Festival will feature three concerts in downtown Eugene, from the Park Blocks to the First Christian Church and the New Zone Gallery. The Light and Art show in the Park Blocks will draw on the energy of ArtCity's BEAM, with amplified music and an interactive light exhibit for audience members. Our audience participation concert draws trained and untrained musicians alike into a collective sound-making space at the First Christian Church, and our concert at New Zone will set pieces for the ensemble in an inviting visual atmosphere. The Call for Scores closes June 1st, and the Guest Artist Application closes July 1st.
STORIES FROM THE UNHOUSED
Composers
Ellie Jakes
JP Lempke
Max Mabry
Choreography
Sara Stockwell
Musicians
Thomas Calletano Gonzalez, Violin I
Ellen LaMora, Violin II
Adrian Cervantes, Cello
Jayne Cronin, Double Bass I
K.C. Isaman, Double Bass II
Owen Atlansky, Electric Guitar
Dancers
Antonio Lopez
Eric Ragan
Sara Stockwell
Steph Young
Gabriel Warren
Stories from the Unhoused spotlighted the narratives of people accessing emergency resources within Eugene by transforming recordings of their experiences into a 45-minute, composed work for chamber ensemble and dance. In Winter 2023-24, Eugene Difficult Music Ensemble (EDME) conducted taped interviews with two dozen members of Eugene’s unhoused community. They also captured sounds of some interviewees performing music. These recordings were organized into an electronic backing track that will accompany EDME musicians and guest dancers in a live performance at Eugene’s Park Blocks. The goal of the performance is to not only inform the public of hardships, barriers, and banalities that accompany life without a permanent residence, but also to bring delight to interviewees who act as EDME’s partners in the art-making process.
EDME cooperated with the local humanitarian organization First Christian Church to conduct interviews with unhoused people. During First Christian’s Helping Hearts program, the ensemble brought portable recording equipment to their chapel and set up a quiet space where volunteers could share about their lives. All volunteers were asked the same questions and, if they had musical experience, were asked to perform on piano, with their voice, or otherwise. All recordings were then edited and manipulated to create a backing track. Three of EDME’s in-house composers, JP Lempke, Max Mabry, and Ellie Jakes, collaborated on a new seven-movement composition to be paired with the backing track. Sara Stockwell created choreography to accompany the music. Our production partner, ArtCity, aided with fundraising and grant-writing for the project.
We presented an all-ages performance on June 16, 2024 in the East Park Block, as well as a preview of the project at ArtsAlive 2024 and performance of part of the project at ArtCity. We will also be performing the full musical suite at Interzone in Corvallis on February 28, 2025.. The experience conveys the voices of our interviewees alongside and against each other, as well as moments of instrumental interludes by both soloists and the ensemble. It projects the issues of our economic system through an aesthetic lens, one which creates allies among the housed population, but principally focuses on bringing a collaborative artistic opportunity to a highly marginalized group, our fellow Eugene citizens who are unhoused.
Stories from the Unhoused was funded in part by a Community Project Grant from Lane Arts Council and Eugene Cultural Services' Downtown Program Fund.
Program
Transcript
