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NYC: FLOWERPOT MUSIC
by Elliot Cole
Tuesday, June 21st 2022
Nethermead in Prospect Park
Rehearsal 5:00-7:00pm | Performance 7:30pm
Video by Four/Ten Media, NYU Percussion Ensemble directed by Jonathan Haas
On Make Music Day, June 21st, music can come from anyone, anywhere, and anything – even flowerpots!
Flowerpot Music, written by celebrated composer Elliot Cole and directed by percussionist Peter Ferry, is a composition for an unlikely but beautiful percussion instrument. Join our NYC group and create outdoor soundscapes through easy-to-learn games, appropriate for musicians and non-musicians alike. All are welcome!
On June 21st, participants will gather at 5:00pm at the Nethermead in Prospect Park with safe social distance to learn and then premiere the piece, specially composed for Make Music Day. The performance will take place at 7:30pm.
There will also be Flowerpot Music performances that day in over 50 cities around the world.
To participate, all you need is a flowerpot! Here's our tutorial for selecting yours:
2020: A Look Back
In 2020, when the original plans for the premiere were upended by the COVID-19 pandemic, Cole and Ferry created a special online version of the composition. Performances by over two dozen groups (250+ performers) from around the United States were live-streamed continuously for 9 hours on June 21st, 2020. Here's a glimpse of the performance.
Project Leaders:
Elliot Cole is a composer and “charismatic contemporary bard” (New York Times) whose music “evokes sparkling icicles of sound” (Rolling Stone). He has performed his music with Grammy winners Roomful of Teeth, Grammy nominees A Far Cry and Metropolis Ensemble, as well as Alkemie Early Music Ensemble, Projeto Arcomusical, the Lucerne Festival Academy, and as a member of the book-club-band Oracle Hysterical. His percussion music has been performed by over 250 percussion ensembles all over the world. He is on faculty at The New School and Juilliard Evening Division, and also runs a music school for incarcerated men at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, NY.
Peter Ferry is a young American percussion soloist re-imagining classical performances around the world through contemporary repertoire projects and innovative artistic collaborations. Called “the ingenious percussionist Peter Ferry,” (Chicago Sun-Times), Ferry has been a concerto and recital guest artist at dozens of universities as well as the Zeltsman Marimba Festival and has stepped in as a guest percussionist with ensembles Alarm Will Sound, Third Coast Percussion, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Eighth Blackbird. With Alarm Will Sound, Ferry serves as the Assistant Director of Artistic Planning, helping to envision and manage the artistic activities of one of the world’s leading contemporary music ensembles.
Mallets for this event generously provided by:
Presented by Make Music New York.
Press materials available here.
For press and event inquiries: Peter.HF.Ferry @ gmail.com
To participate in the performance, register here.