Building Community through Music and Collaboration with Dr. Emlyn Johnson

In this online workshop, Emlyn Johnson, flutist and co-director of American Wild Ensemble, will share a guide to designing musical endeavors centered on community engagement. Dr. Johnson’s presentation will focus on key elements of project development, from mission creation to production, and will encourage participants to think about steps they can take to bring their own music outside of the concert hall and into their communities.

The Music in the American Wild initiative began in 2016 with a commissioning project inspired by and performance tour of American national parks, in honor of the National Park Service centennial. Since these initial tours performing in unconventional venues, from caves to mountaintops, the American Wild Ensemble has continued to celebrate American places, historic figures, and events by commissioning new works and performing them in site-inspired and site-specific locations. Since 2016 AWE has commissioned 30 new works for 2-7 players for performances in both traditional and nontraditional venues across the country. AWE emphasizes audience engagement both through performance format and programming, aiming to offer a cohesive experience that connects listeners to the spaces around them through music designed with those spaces in mind. Ensemble directors Emlyn Johnson (flute) and Daniel Ketter (cello) are both on faculty in the music department at Missouri State University.

As co-director of AWE, Dr. Johnson has developed and directed projects in collaboration with 10 national parks across the country, as well as partnered with a variety of historic sites, schools, and cultural organizations and practitioners. Her work with the ensemble has been supported by grants from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, Chamber Music America, Mid-America Arts Alliance, and New Music USA. This summer Dr. Johnson will lead AWE in a new program, Missouri Music at 200, which honors the 2021 bicentennial of Missouri's statehood through statewide performances of new music by Missouri composers.

http://www.musicintheamericanwild.com