Creating Music Together, Detroit Workshop August 26, 2017 A day of team-building through music. Music-lovers of all experience levels welcome.

Creating Music Together

Detroit Workshop August 26, 2017

A day of team-building through music.

Music-lovers of all experience levels welcome.

As the group--including a programmer, an accountant, and an opera singer--share what they can hear in the room--the rush of car tires on wet payment, the blurp of air brakes on a distant highway, a chirping thrush outside the window--everyone begins to listen more. The facilitator Craig Shepard asks them to listen inside, and suddenly, everyone realizes that they have the capacity to write music--and they always have.

This kind of moment lies at the heart of music-centered, creativity-boosting workshops and retreats facilitated by Music for Contemplation. The collective of artists and educators will hold a day-long team-building workshop called Creating Music Together at Light Box performance space.

Facilitators Craig Shepard (Wandelweiser) and Erin Rogers (ThingNY) introduce practical exercises to listen to inspiration, develop ideas, and communicate them clearly. Working with a diverse team, everyone presents their music to a live audience at 8:00 pm. Participants take away practical skills to improve project management, verbal communication, and public speaking.

Creating Music Together has presented workshops at Dartmouth's Workshop in the Woods, the Monthly Music Hackathon in New York, and at the Music for Contemplation series in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Facilitators Shepard and Rogers have performed everywhere from cow pastures on Swiss mountaintops to Carnegie Hall. Past participants have included programmers, visual artists, project managers, theater directors, accountants, and guitarists. No prior musical training is necessary. Creating Music Together offers a week-long retreat January 3-10, 2017 at St. Mary's Retreat House in Oxford, Michigan.

“Everyone has the capacity to create their own music; we just don't always use it,” Wandelweiser composer Craig Shepard says. “By singing each other’s thoughts, ideas, and creations, we connect in a personal and intimate way. We literally vibrate at someone else's frequency. If we're lucky, time stops, and a magical moment invites us in. There's nothing like it.”

"This introspective yet social workshop helped me explore the power of individuals' intuitions of what to create and how to proceed as a driver of creativity and collaboration." - Jonathan Marmor, Engineering Manager, Spotify

The Creating Music Together workshop will take place at Light Box performance space, 8641 Linwood Street, Detroit, MI 48206, August 26, 2017. Workshop begins 9:30 am. $40 suggested donation. Public performance 8:00 pm $10 suggested donation.

To apply: email apply@creatingmusictogether.org, tell us who you are, and why you want to join

www.creatingmusictogether.org | info@creatingmusictogether.org

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"everything sounded more acute, lively and present — qualities enhanced by the keen listening that the music enabled." - Steve Smith, New York Times

Music for Contemplation (MufoCo) invites listeners to light concentration through a series of concerts, offering a space and time outside busy New York City to let thoughts wander. MufoCo welcomes a broad interpretation of “contemplation”, including classical, jazz, free improvisation, and experimental music styles. Past programs have included thick, dense dissonant textures of Andrew Lafkas, whispy half-heard sounds of the slight brush of a bow on a string, and interlocking melodies of Renaissance composer Orlando di Lasso.

The 2014-2016 seasons took place in the elegant sanctuary of the Church of the Annunciation in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Programs included works by Shelley Burgon, Dan Joseph, the New York Guitar Circle, Deep Listening composers Pauline Oliveros Oliveros and Stuart Dempster, Wandelweiser composers Antoine Beuger, Kunsu Shim, Eva-Maria Houben, Sam Sfirri, and Craig Shepard, and free improvisers Christian Kobi, Sean Meehan, and Mike Bullock.

Erin Rogers is a composer and saxophonist with thingNY, Hypercube, and the New Thread Quartet. Her works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, the Museum Concert Hall, Taiwan, and many places in-between. She has spent more than ten years working in music publishing. She lives in New York.

Craig Shepard is a member of the Wandelweiser group. He studied trombone performance at Northwestern University and the Zurich University of the Arts and has participated in Deep Listening and Guitar Circle courses. Recent projects include On Foot: Brooklyn, and Trumpet City. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.