He’s a natural
We’re not sure what he has against Delaware, but traveling composer and pianist Ben Cosgrove has performed his compelling and beautiful instrumental music in every other state in the US.
Join Cosgrove for an evening of music and conversation at the Lincoln City Cultural Center this Friday, Sept. 23.
Exploring themes of landscape, place and environment, Cosgrove has collaborated with artists ranging from Palaver Strings to Ghost of Paul Revere, and held artist residencies and fellowships with institutions including the National Park Service, the National Forest Service and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology.
His fourth studio album, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” is an evocation of various expressions of nature and wildness within the built environment. It was released last year and has been called "beautiful and fascinating" by The Maine Edge and "deeply impressive" by Independent Clauses.
Based in New England, Cosgrove is also an author and has held the Artist in Residence Fellowship at Harvard University's Signet Society as well as a Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism. His nonfiction has appeared in Orion, Appalachia, Northern Woodlands, Taproot and elsewhere.
The evening begins at 7 pm. General admission tickets are $20 for adults and free for kids 17 and younger. The Lincoln City Cultural Center is located at 540 NE Hwy. 101.
For more information, go to lincolncity-culturalcenter.org or call 541-994-9994.
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At the Sitka Center, Cosgrove has taught the workshops "Reflecting Place in Music" and "Music of the Landscape." He returns with the workshop “Reflecting Place with Music” this Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 24 and 25.
For about as long as humans have been making music, composers, songwriters and other music-makers have explored different strategies for using sound and music to evoke places and landscapes. How can a piece of music put a listener in mind of a prairie? Or a canyon? Or a city? In the first half of this workshop participants will listen to and learn about some of these techniques, looking to examples from rock, pop, classical, jazz and other genres. After discussing these, participants will each spend the second half applying them to a new work of their own. No musical experience is necessary — the subject matter and practical work involved in the workshop is largely conceptual and many of the most satisfied participants in previous workshops have been non-musicians.
The workshop is from 10 am to 4 pm on both days and is open to all skills levels aged 12 and older. The fee is $145. For more information, go to www.sitkacenter.org.