What is happening? Over 60 members of our community are assembled for a continuous, ten-hour performance at Goodyear Arts on Saturday, 18 October, from noon until 10pm.

The main impetus for this event is the celebration of ten years of Goodyear Arts and ten years since the first iteration of the Ghost Trees Big Band, formed to play a residency at Goodyear in September 2015. This explains the reasoning behind ten hours of music. Beyond that, however, we want to get at some other ideas.

Instead of carefully-constructed music that is crafted and possessed by a small group of individuals, we want to cultivate an environment for something bigger—something collective, something less precious and more powerful. We also want to find a way to unite the music with poetry and spoken performance. This interweaving will serve to create a third experience—neither a music show nor a reading—something…else? 

Too much of the music of Western Europe (and the settler colony diaspora) is arranged along the artificial boundary that separates the performer from the audience, fenced in by restrictive ideas about the “proper” times, places, and functions of performance. Our hope is that this fluid, durational event will shift the focus to other traditions. Music-making is a community effort, and—at its core—it stands as a true collective expression that can’t be owned or sold. This piece—this event—belongs to all of us, and what we create and experience will be unpredictable and idiosyncratic, beautiful and genuine.

Contributing Musicians (in alphabetical order) include: Brent Bagwell, Kadey Ballard, Thomas Berkau, Davey Blackburn, Sarah Blumenthal, Rusty Colton, Troy Conn, Will Davis, Judebird Dennis, Jeremy Fisher, Ben Geller, Dylan Gilbert, Brett Green, Lee Herrera, Jessica Lindsey, Renee Lamb, Casey Malone, Nathan Matthews, Jody Mattiacci, Lenny Muckle, Seth Nanaa, Claudio Ortiz, Liza Ortiz, Charles Ovett, Seth Peagler, Eli Pittman, Cadence Pottinger, Phil Pucci, Zach Reader, Sean Robinson, John Shaughnessy, Mark Sullivan, Scott Thompson, Krizia Torres, Chris Walldorf, Erik Waterkotte, Bo White , and Ross Wilbanks.

Performers / Readers (in performance order): Asma Abike, Shane Manier, Sasha Banks, Olivia Dorsey Peacock, Gabriela Griggs, Phaze Gawd Marquis Hartis, Jeff Jackson, Julie Funderburk, Matt Cosper, Britt Olson, Melissa Harris, Bluz Rogers, Isaac Akanmu, Angelina Oberdan Brooks, Amy Bagwell, Cedric Tillman, Lisa Zerkle, Jordan Bailey, Shirley Griffith, Erin Rose Coffin, and de’Angelo Dia