PUTNEY — Yellow Barn, an international center for chamber music in Putney, is giving the idea of taking music “on the road” a fresh literal spin with its new program, Music Haul.
Redefining what a concert hall can be, the Music Haul is a traveling stage that brings music “to grammar schools and conservatories, urban neighborhoods and arts districts, city lots and open fields,” explains Catherine Stephan, executive director of Yellow Barn.
Last year, Yellow Barn purchased a used 17-foot U-Haul moving truck, and then invited architect John Rossi of VisibleGood, an organization that produces free shelters for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, to join the project refurbishing it.
“Rossi is quite a remarkable person who has become very much a part of who we are at Yellow Barn,” Stephan says. “Working with the U.S. military, John takes shipping containers and builds spaces for hospitals in war-torn areas of the world. He was the perfect person to redesign our small space.”
Together with designer John Kramer, Bill Lincoln at Response Marine, and Viking Welding, Yellow Barn's team took what Stephan characterizes as a “plain old” U-Haul and transformed it into Music Haul.
As described on www.yellowbarn.org, the Music Haul is “a self-contained, traveling concert venue for as many as six musicians, fully-equipped with interior and exterior performance spaces, a high quality internal/external sound system, video capabilities, and climate-controlled passenger and storage areas, including storage for percussion, string instruments, and a piano.”
Yellow Barn has three goals for Music Haul.
“We want to challenge the idea of the elitism of chamber music, to show music's power to transform, and to bring the music directly to the people with our Hall (Haul) on wheels,” Stephan says. “With Yellow Barn Music Haul we are redefining the idea of reaching out. Our intention is no longer just to bring people in to hear great music, but to bring the music directly to the people with our Hall (Haul) on wheels”
Stephan wants everyone to know the wide range of repertoire performed at Yellow Barn, and to enable more diverse audiences to experience its palette of sound.
“As Music Haul does pop-up performances in the most unlikely places, such as inner-city playgrounds, we hope to convey the message that chamber music is not just about powdered wigs, (although, in their day, those in powdered wigs often were revolutionaries themselves). What Yellow Barn presents is a dialogue between older and new music. [Whether] ultimately any of this will bring people to hear us in the Big Barn, or any other concert hall, is a totally separate issue. We consider Music Haul an in-and-of-itself experience.”
Now planning pop-up performances in Boston this fall and in New York City next spring, Music Haul last April traveled to Baltimore for a series of performances in the inner city.
“We set up in one of the worst parts of Baltimore, where there were no elements of physical beauty,” Stephan says. “We hoped to bring a little joy and beauty to these dismal surroundings. As we drove our trailer through West Baltimore playing Bach on our external speakers, so many people found their day changed, as they looked up from whatever they were doing, smiling and waving at us.”
Music Haul spent a week parked on the playground of an elementary school where six gang-related murders had recently been committed.
“The students at recess could come to meet and greet with us,” says Stephan. “After gaining their trust, we then showed some films of music performances (the Haul has video capability), such as by the Yugoslav Youth Orchestra, which they perhaps could more easily relate to. Then we moved on to a live performances, with music by a percussion group.
“The kids were not told to be quiet. They could go off to play on the jungle gym or whatever. It was their choice to come to us and listen, and many did. Natural curiosity does exist. Kids become a litmus test of the power of music.”
Music Haul this summer has joined forces with another of Yellow Barn's projects, its Young Artist Program, which was described in a recent news release as bringing together “28 outstanding young instrumentalists and composers from across the United States and abroad for a rigorous and exciting 18-day chamber music workshop that includes intensive study and three public performances.”
Stephan elaborates, “The members of this summer intensive range in ages from 13 until 20 who audition for a slot with Yellow Barn all over the country and Europe. This year [the Young Artist Program] include six composers. What makes this component of the program especially exciting is that these composers write new works during the two-and-a-half weeks here at Yellow Barn.
“This year our young composers have been asked to write short, intense, and rewarding works designed specifically to be played by our young musicians for Music Haul at our fund-raising gala, Inside/Out.”
On Saturday, June 25, at 4 p.m., the Music Haul will be in Newfane for Yellow Barn's 2016 gala at The Four Columns Inn, “Music Inside/Out.”
The event begins with a free public performance with Yellow Barn Music Haul. Drawing inspiration from Charles Ives, John Cage, and Walt Disney, Yellow Barn Music Haul will present seven world premieres that it says will “transform a Vermont village through music and soundscapes.”
“Yellow Barn has transformed the town of Newfane into six environments,” says Seth Knopp, Yellow Barn Artistic Director. “To present music here out in the open spaces, our composers have to broaden what they do. So do the musicians. Our goal at Yellow Barn, in general but specifically in this concert, is to expand possibilities, to invite our young artists to let their imaginations to go, often in frightening ways.”
“In addition to the six young composers' works, there is a surprise seventh premiere by Young Artists Program faculty member, Christopher Theofanidis,” Stephan says.
An internationally celebrated composer, Theofanidis is currently a professor at Yale as well as a past Yellow Barn musician (2007–2014). His compositions have been performed by many leading orchestras from around the world, been nominated for Grammy awards, and championed by such acclaimed artists as Thomas Hampson and Sarah Chang.
After the public performance by Music Haul, Inside/Out continues with a scholarship benefit event, which includes a dinner with Young Artists Program musicians and guests, catering by Frederic Kieffer of the Artisan Restaurant & Tavern at the Four Columns.
“The benefit is vitally important to Yellow Barn, since 50 percent of the participants at our Young Artist and 100 percent of our five-week summer intensive programs receive scholarship support,” Stephan says.