The Portable Percussionist: Long
Trail concert tour
What? This September/early October, I’m
going to be thru-hiking the Long Trail --272 miles running the length of
Vermont – from the Canadian border down to Massachusetts. Along the way, I’ll stop
off and give solo concerts/clinics, for “portable” percussion. That means found
objects, bits of wood, stones, ceramic flowerpots, etc. I’ll be playing some
pieces from the Frog Peak ‘Rock Music’ collection (you can guess the
instrumentation), Rzewski’s ‘To The Earth’, and first performances of works by
Jacob Mashak and Dennis Báthory-Kitsz.
The concert schedule will be announced very soon (I’m still looking for a few
venues/schools/barns/houses/galleries to play in Central and Southern Vermont),
and each day I’ll share up to 272 words about the project. There’s a lot to plan,
from scheduling to repertoire to sleeping options to percussion mallets to food
to blister control.
Why? Because I love music and I love
hiking. Because any kind of adventure is good. Because the Vermont winter is
around the corner, and spending September almost entirely outdoors will be good
for my muscles, head and heart. Because (thanks to a grant from the Vermont Community Foundation), I can help bring some brand-new music into the world,
while seeing things I’ve never seen before.
How? Have you gone completely mad? On balance, I don’t think a
thru-hike is intrinsically more dangerous than a regular road commute. I’ve
already solo-hiked two of the LT’s 12 divisions, and last year I thru-hiked the
UK’s Coast-to-Coast trail. I’m planning and prepping the Long Trail tour
carefully, and hope to have friends join me for sections of the hike.
No comments:
Post a Comment