Spektral Quartet invites you to reconnect to nature with a meditative sound walk featuring an sumptuous new manuscript written and read by Braiding Sweetgrass author Robin Wall Kimmerer.
What if a 45-minute walk could revitalize your relationship to the environment, reversing the dis-connection often provoked by the workaday grind? With music inspired by the Chicago lakeshore, performed by a multi-Grammy-nominated quartet and embroidered with poetic reflections by Dr. Kimmerer, your favorite forest preserve, hiking trail, or neighborhood garden is transformed into a wondrous amphitheater.
At 4pm CT on November 9th, simply choose your destination and tune in to Chicago’s own Lumpen Radio (105.5fm or streaming online) to experience this restorative convergence of music, language, and landscape.
What will you hear?
A single piece of music comprises the performance: Plain, Air, composed by Guggenheim fellow Tonia Ko and commissioned by Chamber Music America for Spektral. Created in partnership with Chicago-based land conservation organization Openlands, Plain, Air is both a celebration of – and meditation on – Chicago’s dynamic lakeshore ecology.
Sound walk from the premiere of Plain, Air at Openlands Lakeshore Preserve
When considering possible collaborators for the Chicago Humanities Festival appearance from which this broadcast originates, one name quickly surfaced at the top of our list. An enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation and author of the New York Times best-selling book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer is celebrated internationally for her inviting and evocative perspective on humans’ reciprocal relationship with their environment.
Rather than simply splitting the event with Dr. Kimmerer, she will interweave Plain, Air with spoken reflections, segmenting the movements of the quartet like chapters of a book, inspiring you to consider your own connections and dis-connections to the natural world.
We present this broadcast free of charge, but we are asking you for a small favor: take a photo during your excursion and tag it #HikingWithSpektral on your social media platform of choice.
Unsure where to go? Our friends at Openlands have a marvelous, searchable map listing many of Chicagoland’s most picturesque natural destinations. Don’t live in the Chicago area? What a fantastic opportunity to discover land conservation organizations in your area!
Listen online or tune in to 105.5fm (Chicago)
PROGRAM
Tonia Ko – Plain, Air (2018) featuring Robin Wall Kimmerer
Plain, Air is made possible with the generous support of Openlands
Spektral Quartet’s programming is supported by our members, our donors, and by the following foundations and organizations:
