Wandering With Wonder

“Update: Due to Covid ‘Wandering with Wonder’ has been postponed until September 2021 - Stay tuned for updates.”

I am very excited to announce that one year from today on Saturday, September 19, 2020 we will be launching a new project: “Wandering With Wonder: A Sound Outdoor Storytelling Experience” at the Leighton Arts Centre just south of Calgary. This project will be an immersive outdoor musical storytelling experience with original live and recorded music, spoken word, puppetry and dance. My career has been about bringing the audience inside to experience music and storytelling about the mystery of our natural world. This project will invite the audience to wander in the natural world with the artists.

My inspiration to create this project came in 2013, when the National Arts Centre of Canada (NAC) asked its teaching artists to bring the life works of R. Murray Schafer into Canadian schools. To prepare for this work, I read many of his books and studied his musical scores. His unrelenting message throughout all his work is understanding that we are all simultaneously listeners and performers and composers of the universal symphony. This message resonated with me. I gained a much deeper appreciation for Schafer’s work and vision, and a desire to create something in an unconventional way in my own work.

In June of 2017, Erin Thrall invited several artists to the McIntyre Ranch. This artist retreat provided us a peaceful environment to work in, with other artists to whom nature is a significant element and source of inspiration in their work. I spent the days walking the incredibly beautiful land, collaborating, writing, talking to really cool people and eating amazing food. I may have also played some trumpet. Slowly over the next few years this project started to take shape. With the continued support of Erin, the McIntyre Ranch, and some hard work writing grants we now have the funding to take this project to the next level.

I have spent the spring and summer writing this project and I am curious to see where it meanders over the next year. The team working on this project is incredible and we can’t wait to share this creative adventure with you. The amazing artists on this project are:

Chris Andrew/composer, Dean Bareham/Puppeteer - Green Fools Theatre, Matt Epp/Singer Songwriter - Composer, Walter MacDonald White Bear/Singer Songwriter - Flute - Guitar - Drum - Composer, Sherryl Sewepagaham/Composer, Yukichi Hattori/Dancer.

I will be posting the year long journey on this blog so check in often to see where we are at. We will be collaborating with our partners: The Leighton Arts Centre and The Calgary Stampede Youth Programs to bring this project to life and we can’t thank them enough for their support. Thank you for reading this blog and let me know if there is anything you are curious about.

We acknowledge the support of the Province of Alberta through Alberta Foundation for the Arts and the Canada Council for the Arts. Thank you for your generous support. We appreciate it so much.