Composer / Director JG Everest returns to Grand Marais, MN to present his site-specific “Spring Sound Garden” sound + performance installation at Harbor Park on May 29 & 30 as part of the annual ART ALONG THE LAKE open gallery tour event. This self-guided, spatial “concert you can move through” was originally composed specifically for Harbor Park, and is being re-mounted to celebrate the 15-Year Anniversary of this special place with over 30 participating artists and collaborators.
The Spring Sound Garden features a temporary sound installation of 50 small, battery-powered remote speakers distributed throughout the park, each playing a different part of the larger piece of music, creating a multi-layered, immersive experience. The sound installation is accompanied live by the roving Free Range Orchestra & Choir, with a durational site-specific movement score by Minneapolis-based dancers Leslie O’Neill, Sarah Baumert, Megan Mayer, and Erika Hansen.
The Spring Sound Garden is the second installment of Everest’s 4-part WATER SUITE: Four Seasonal Sound Gardens that first premiered in 2018, at four different outdoor locations around Minnesota. Each seasonal Sound Garden in the Water Suite was composed for one of the four seasons, and for a specific site that was on or adjacent to a significant body of water. As part of the SPRING Sound Garden event in 2021, Everest is also releasing a new album of the soundtrack, Harbor Park: A Spring Sound Garden, including site-specific stories and poems that were commissioned for the original event.
The Spring Sound Garden at Harbor Park is a family-friendly free outdoor event open to all ages and will take place from noon – 5pm on Memorial Day weekend both Saturday May 29 and Sunday May 30, 2021. The Spring Sound Garden celebrates the coming of spring, the sacredness of water, and the history, geography, and ecology of Harbor Park and Lake Superior, and includes oral histories and archival photos, spotlighting the community of local volunteers and community members who brought the park into being.
The event will also feature visual art elements by local artists such as plein air oil painter Neil Sherman, muralist Mila Horak, art students from Cook County Middle School, and stories by storyteller Staci Lola Drouillard. Presented by Wavelets Creative in partnership with the Cook County Historical Society, Grand Marais Park Board, and Art Along The Lake / Visit Cook County.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.