Caroline Shaw • “From Rivers”

Commissioned for the opening of new Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Hospital and Health Campus, Pulitzer Prize winning composer, Caroline Shaw, imagines this piece around the movements of water. From Rivers features vocalist Kristin Newborn, cellist Polina Umansky, and the Indianapolis Children's Choir (directed by Henry Leck). From Rivers is an experimental and adventurous journey that evokes the movement of water through processes of evaporation and precipitation. Shaw captures this movement using familiar melodies translated through the choral rises and falls of ethereal vocals. By suggesting the circular movement of water from sky to earth, Shaw places the listener into this flowing movement. Shaw references not only the prominent waterfall feature, “Healing Waters” that greets visitors as they enter the Eskenazi hospital (a public hospital founded in 1855), but reminds listeners of the site-specificity of the Eskenazi Health Campus between the White River and Fall Creek.

GPS Location: 39.777588, -86.183480
Duration: 05:27
Year: 2014
Commissioned by Eskenazi Health

Credits:
Recorded at Aire Born
Mixed by Derik Lee
Mastered by Oscar Zambrano
Album art by Oliver Blank
Album image by Tad Fruits

http://carolineshaw.com/

Caroline Shaw - From Rivers

Hanna Benn • “The White River”

Created as a personification of the White River, the largest of Indianapolis’s six waterways, this piece is composed of three musical movements that mirror the history of this river: (I) from the start of its life at mouth of the river; (II) to the advent of machinery that changed the quality of the river’s life; and finally, (III) the acclimation (the processes of change) of the landscape over time caused by movements, floods, and retractions of the White River. Each movement is Benn’s interpretation of the ecologies, the multispecies inhabitants, and the human influence surrounding the river, and the effect each has on one another. This track, like the White River, is grand and sweeping in its orchestral quality. Benn’s work is a tribute to a river that is complex.

GPS Location: 39.754659, -86.174926
Duration: 12:12
Year: 2015
Commissioned as one of six original music pieces of the Streamlines project, funded by the National Science Foundation.

Credits:
Hanna Benn, piano 
Eric Fridrich, jaw harp & harmonica
Paris Hurley, violin
Ephriam Nagler, bass drum

Recorded and Mixed by Ephriam Nagler

Field recordings of the White River’s riparian zone and the site’s (Kentucky Ave) surroundings, recorded by BennDavid Communications

Album art by Oliver Blank
Album image by Tad Fruits

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL-1323117 and supported by subaward 001096-1213TCDRLD.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

https://hannabenn.com/

Hanna Benn - the White River

Olga Bell • “Voluntary Remediation”

Pleasant Run, one of Indianapolis’s six waterways, is a devastating environmental story of the rapid onset of industry and its environmental fallout. This reality lives alongside the simultaneously passionate, prideful, and painful histories that are a reality for many in Indianapolis. Olga Bell is conceptual in her approach to music and creates work at the intersection of chamber/classical and electronic music. Using data collected from secondary sources found using Google Earth, Youtube.com, and map searches, Voluntary Remediation captures a sensory interpretation of Pleasant Run with a track that asks: “Is Pleasant Run a pleasant place?” Snippets from a local newscast and the Coke Plant imposes a sonic “interruption” of recordings from the creek environment. These effects are followed by a listing out of its chemical pollutants, read aloud over an abrupt shift in the music. The gurgling synth at the end of the track is effectively Bell’s way of “playing” a water quality data set from the Marion County Health Department. Voluntary Remediation uses sounds to track historical interruptions as an urgent call to action for the remediation of polluted and abused waterways.

GPS Location: 39.752333, -86.118080
Duration: 08:08
Year: 2015
Commissioned as one of six original music pieces of the Streamlines project, funded by the National Science Foundation.

Credits:
Album art by Oliver Blank
Album image by Tad Fruits

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DRL-1323117 and supported by subaward 001096-1213TCDRLD.

Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

For more information visit http://streamlines.org

http://bellinspace.com/

Olga Bell - Voluntary Remediation

Chris Kallmyer • “Circles Circling”
Created for the 2015 Equinox at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Circles Circling was performed live under “Align,” a work by Type A on September 19, 2015. Kallmyer, known internationally for his clever investigations of soundscapes, creates scenarios that generate unique musical encounters. This piece was scored with 1,000 live crickets existing freely in the park that are attuned to the changing light of the seasons and therefore have a more intense experience during the Equinox than humans. As a guitarist, Kallmyer engages with the sounds of crickets through the creation of an improvised circular music technique. Circles Circling makes transparent the process of collecting the sound of 1,000 crickets by using two high-fidelity microphones. What results is a track of amplified crickets attuned to the movement of the cosmic spheres that invoke the complexity of the universe that is then accompanied by circular sounds created on the guitar. Circling Circles draws attention to the mystery of the invisible spheres cosmic events, the passage of time, and the poetics of crickets.

GPS Location: 39.826885, -86.189339
Duration: 10:15
Year: 2016
Commissioned by Newfields (formerly the Indianapolis Museum of Art)

http://www.chriskallmyer.com/

Chris Kallmyer - Circles Circling

Sedcairn Archives • “Trouble Slug”

An unmarked alley in Indianapolis is the site of the unsolved murder of Indianapolis resident and blues trailblazer, Scrapper Blackwell. Ironically, today this site is home to a State Police forensics lab. Trouble Slug is an emotional and evocative reaction to multiple traumatic circumstances that surround the life and death of Scrapper Blackwell. Trouble Slug contains samples of guitar notes and vocal runs performed by Blackwell in 1928. Sedcairn Archives helps to make a necessary historical connection between the visionary aspects of Blackwell’s music and the advanced futurism of a more modern African-American musical form known as Chicago Footwork. In this piece, the real trauma of Blackwell’s unsolved murder is felt in the ominous opening dissonance, and there is a real loss remembered in this piece as Blackwell continues to be unrecognized for advancing a blues style that did not fit neatly into the timeline of blues progression accepted by most blues historians.

GPS Location: 39.788840, -86.169937
Duration: 07:24
Year: 2015
Commissioned by Sound Expeditions

Credits:
Performed and Written by Sedcairn Archives
Album art design by Oliver Blank

Sedcairn Archives - Trouble Slug

City Water • “The Sunken Garden”

Garfield Park is a 128-acre regional city park on the southside of Indianapolis that was established in the late-19th century. Today, it is the oldest city park in Indianapolis and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This park is home to the Sunken Garden—a place that sits like an oasis out of time. Designed by German immigrant George Kessler in the early-1910s after the establishment of the park. The formal European-style garden is a compelling juxtaposition of old world allure and modern urban grit that exists today. The Sunken Garden is comprised of field recordings taken from the four corners of the garden. An archive of sounds that capture the buzz of highways, fountains, and of the human vibrancy coming from the surrounding working class neighborhoods. These sound bites are immersed in a pastoral wash of choral drone and dreamlike piano in the final track. The Sunken Garden is a meditation on timelessness and the overlap of generational energy in a single place. This track is meant to tie together the past, present, and future of a place.

GPS Location: 39.732447, -86.142500
Duration: 05:02
Year: 2016
Commissioned by Sound Expeditions

http://youngtobacco.com/CITYWATER

City Water - Sunken Garden

Arrington de Dionyso • “Music for Two Bromiophones”

A tunnel is a wondrous place full of mystery and potential. Music for Two Bromiophones begins with the question: “what would be like to explore the acoustic resonances of a tunnel and how can this space bring about otherworldly music?” A bromiophone is a reed instrument created by Arrington de Dionyso’s that makes a thunder-like musical sound. In this short piece for two bromiophones, the score communicates feelings of yearning for freedom while being ever in awe of the great mystery of life that humans may never truly be able to understand. In Music for Two Bromiophones, de Dionyso explores the ways that music creates a sense of ‘sacred space’ that has the ability to transport a listener away from the day-to-day realm of the mundane, or what is perceived to be a ‘normal’ reality, and enter into new levels of both inner contemplation and energized activation of all the senses.

GPS Location: 39.827346, -86.188321
Duration: 04:39
Year: 2016
Commissioned by Sound Expeditions

https://arrington.bandcamp.com/

Arrington de Dionyso - Music for Two Bromiophones

Jason Ajemian • “FEVER DREAM 500 (For GOMER!)”

Known as one of the greatest spectacles in Formula 1 ® Motor Sports, the Indianapolis Speedway track changes the soundscape of the entire city during the races each May. The sheer magnitude and sonic qualities of a Formula 1 ® race track are often times unimaginable. When experienced live—the sound and its physical vibration are known to shake the human body to its core and the structures that lay in the pathway of the sound waves that emerge from the humming motors. FEVER DREAM 500 (For GOMER!) was originally imagined as a warm-up for the ears and chest prior entering the Indy 500 race course. Jason Ajemian, known for creating compositions that are like virtual spaces for improvisation, captures the complex sonic reality that changes a person and city with the use of panning saxophones to create a Doppler like effect, field recordings, and the vocal addition of Jim Nabors ending his intro of singing “Back Home in Indiana” from 2014—his voice echoing a feverish dream of the experience and memory from the race track.

GPS Location: 39.795635, -86.234940
Duration: 04:51
Year: 2017
Commissioned by Sound Expeditions

Jason Ajemian - FEVER DREAM 500 (For GOMER!)

Clint Breeze • “Through These Portals”

Indianapolis is the home to some of jazz’s greatest legends, including Wes Montgomery, Freddie Hubbard, J.J. Johnson, David Baker, Jimmie Coe, and several others. Add to this list, contemporary sound artist Clint Breeze known for drawing on both jazz and hip-hop idioms. Through These Portals pays an electronic homage to the historically and culturally significant area of Indiana Avenue—once a bustling corridor to see and play jazz during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Indiana Avenue was rich with music venues like Henri’s Bar and Georgia’s Bar—where the sign above the Henri’s Bar door read: "Through these Portals Pass the World's Best Musicians.” Indiana Avenue has a complicated history due the disenfranchisement of African American communities. Since the construction of the interstate system and ‘urban renewal efforts’, Indiana Avenue and its surrounding neighborhoods suffered from these dramatic changes. Unfortunately, some artists were forced to move elsewhere for their careers, and due to the closing of black owned business, and encroaching gentrification, Indiana Avenue has not thrived as it once did in the mid-twentieth century. Through These Portals is a sonic tribute to this vibrant history.

GPS Location: 39.771996, -86.162548
Duration: 04:02
Year: 2017
Commissioned by Sound Expeditions

https://clintbreeze.bandcamp.com/

Clint Breeze - Through These Portals

MANA2 • “Water Mining”

Water Mining was created as part of an interactive musical installation used to collect and amplify underwater sounds from the Virginia B. Fairbanks Art & Nature Park lake at Newfields (formerly the Indianapolis Museum of Art). The lake is a significant feature on the grounds of the Newfields. Composed and performed by MANA2, an Indianapolis-based performance duo comprised of Michael Drews and Jordan Munson, Water Mining is an extension of a collaboration with artist Brian McCutcheon for the 2014 Autumn Equinox celebration. As a live-performance, Water Mining starts out quietly and gently, like the lake in a state of calmness. Then ethereally weaves water sounds collected through the installation on the lake that then enter into the track to create its harmonic and melodic textures. Each phase of the performance reveals a new imaginary voice found within the water that has been hidden, and yet is mysterious and provocative.

GPS Location: 39.828180, -86.191429
Duration: 10:10
Year: 2016
Commissioned by Newfields (formerly the Indianapolis Museum of Art)

https://mana2.bandcamp.com/

MANA2 - Water Mining

Derek Johnson • “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL”

The Murphy Arts Center in Fountain Square has had a long life serving artists, and has been home to several music venues over the years. When asked to write a site-specific composition for a place in Indianapolis, percussionist and composer Derek Johnson instantly thought of the “YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL” sign on top of The Murphy building—a mural installed in 2007 by the creative efforts of the Department of Public Words (DPIndy). Their efforts encourage positive words and messages of empowerment. This mural, seen nearly every day by residents when moving around this vibrant neighborhood, is even more well known to artists like Johnson who live and work in the Murphy Building. Johnson’s YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL is a love letter to a place that embraces the sign’s message—it creates a state of being that is intrinsic, but also constantly strived for through consistency and practice. Art in all its forms reminds people of the inherent beauties that exists in every human being. The repetitive vocals set to an electronic track feel radiant as they emanate from the brick wall in an upbeat and hopeful cascade into the heart of the city.

GPS Location: 39.752849, -86.140922
Duration: 03:44
Year: 2017
Commissioned by Sound Expeditions

Photo by Mandy Crandell

Derek Johnson - YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL

Bonnie Whiting • “Control/Resist”

The Indiana State Capitol is a site that relates to both state and federal politics, and is a location that contains the duality of action for both government and protest. The tensions of this duality are captured through overlaid percussion techniques in Control/Resist. This track is a musical expression of two sides of political action: (1) the private daily work of sustained resistance; and (2) the less frequent act of public demonstration and shared experience. The rhythm of the work is a transcription of a text from a mesostic poem (a poem where the text is arranged so that the vertical phrase intersects the line of a horizontal text). This is a poem Bonnie Whiting created that emerges from versions of an online resistance syllabus. Beneath this score are recordings of Whitings daily percussion practice on different instruments at different tempos. Crowdsourced noises from the Indianapolis Women’s March on January 20, 2017 at the west side plaza of the Indiana Statehouse combine with granular metallic percussion sounds and white noise to dominate the soundscape and replicate these moments of energetic resistance.

GPS Location: 39.768653, -86.163573
Duration: 08:24
Year: 2017
Commissioned by Sound Expeditions

http://bonniewhitingpercussion.com/

Bonnie Whiting - Control/Resist

Dena El Saffar • “Interactions with Nature: Urban Green Space, Indianapolis”

The green spaces within Indianapolis, and the State parks, and forests throughout Indiana offer an escape for some from twenty-first century lifestyles that are rife with anxiety and stress. In the urban sprawl of Indianapolis, the sounds of nature are their own complex composition. The bird songs, the insects, the wind rushing through the trees all provide a balance to the chaos of traffic, and bring a counterpoint to the Dena Al Saffar’s track. In Interactions in Nature: Urban Green Space, Indianapolis, Saffar situates herself along the Canal Towpath (the Central Canal is a primary source of drinking water for the Indianapolis metropolitan area) just before sunset and records herself playing instruments adjacent to happenstance bird songs of a robin, a cardinal, and a finch that punctuate the scene. A flute, chimes, shakers, and other noise-makers blend within this environment. The added ambient noise of bicyclists passing by, the distant sound of traffic, are all reminders that green spaces exists right in the middle of a vibrant and complex city.

GPS Location: 39.835739, -86.177061
Duration: 05:20
Year: 2017
Commissioned by Sound Expeditions

http://www.salaamband.com/

Dena El Saffar - Interactions with Nature

Ian Chang • “Euell”

The English Hotel & Opera House stood in the heart of downtown Indianapolis from 1880-1948. Through secondary sources (records, articles, and photographs) Ian Chang’s track tells the story of the 1917 murder case of Clarence Euell, an African-American waiter at the hotel’s cafe. As the story goes, Milwaukee Brewers’ manager Daniel Shay had just suffered a defeat against the Indianapolis Indians baseball team, and after taking issue with how much sugar he was given for coffee, shot Euell in the stomach. Despite conflicting witness reports, the jury concluded that Shay was defending himself and he was acquitted of second degree murder. This story reflects racial tensions and prejudice in Jim Crow-era America and is a somber reminder of how loudly that era echoes today. The piece seeks to embody both the opulence of the space and the tragedy of the Euell murder with a uncanny and operatic sonic palette. With the exception of woodblock and kick drum, Euell is created entirely of manipulated opera samples and the resulting sonic environment feels like a ghost opera.

GPS Location: 39.768947, -86.158545
Duration: 04:21
Year: 2017
Commissioned by Sound Expeditions

https://ianyhchang.bandcamp.com/

Ian Chang - Euell

Julianna Barwick • “Thrasher”

Major Taylor Velodrome Skatepark in Indianapolis is home to ledges, transition pyramids, quarterpipes, and a wedge half-bowl. A skater’s outdoor paradise on the prairies. Thrasher captures Julianna Barwick’s observation of a skater’s almost seamless and poetic movement as they glide across concrete surfaces, over ridges, and take flight. The score captures her witnessing of the skaters’ gentle movement through the space—their rolling, lifting, seemingly endless positions. Gestures that have a poetic resonance with the gentle and perfectly timed movements found in music. Barwick’s track is complex with electronic loops that mimic the invisible looped paths a skateboarder takes to master a landing. This song was composed in an appreciation of the singular-nature of the sport of skateboarding and the subculture that includes many vibrant personalities and talent in Indianapolis.

GPS Location: 39.820286, -86.197833
Duration: 04:39
Year: 2017
Commissioned by Sound Expeditions

Credits:
Violinist- Hannah Epperson

http://www.juliannabarwick.com/

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