I'm honored and excited to receive a Creative Capital Award. The project, called "Shawnee, Ohio" was one of 46 selected.
Full information here: http://blog.creative-capital.org/2016/01/7517/
The Big City: Rawhead & Bloodybones part of "Personal Best of 2015"
Rawhead & Bloodybones was on the "Personal Best of 2015" list by The Big City blog. Here is the review:
"Not the usual archival release from Dust-to-Digital, but new music from composer Harnetty. He combines samples of music and spoken audio from both the Berea College Appalachian Sound Archives and the Sun Ra/El Saturn Creative Audio Archive, and to the prerecorded music he adds original, acoustic touches. This is a dialogue between past and present, memory and action, grisly, strange, and compelling." -- George Grella
And, here is more information on the other artists on the list:
http://thebigcityblog.com/personal-best-2015/
Feature in Columbus Alive
Columbus Alive wrote a feature article on the new "Shawnee, Ohio" project. The piece will be premiered at the Wexner Center for the Arts this fall, and received support from Creative Capital and the National Endowment for the Arts. Here is an excerpt:
"Shawnee, Ohio, is being commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts, which recently was awarded a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts to support creative residency artists. Harnetty is one of three nationally acclaimed artists who are receiving support from the grant.
Charles Helm, director of performing arts at the Wexner Center, said he is excited for the premiere of the composition, scheduled for Oct. 28, 2016. 'It talks about issues like environment, Appalachian culture, the history of coal mining, organizing labor and fracking’s impact on population decline,' said Helm. 'He’s dealing with this material in a very profound and artistic way. That’s exactly the kind of project we want to embrace.'
The premiere will feature a live performance with Harnetty and a handful of other artists, along with an accompanying video. The album is scheduled to be released on the Dust-to-Digital recording label in September 2016.
'The Wexner Center for the Arts has a strong commitment to local artists, and I think that it’s pretty amazing for Columbus,' said Harnetty.
Harnetty quotes Wendell Berry, a Kentucky poet, activist and farmer who writes about agrarian and environmental issues.
'He said that he used to think that art was a refuge from all the troubles in the world, but he no longer thinks that way,” Harnetty said. “Art is his place and he lives in it. I took that pretty literally.'"
And, here is the full article:
http://www.columbusalive.com/content/stories/2015/12/17/composer-brian-harnetty.html
Wexner Center Commission / NEA Art Works Grant
Honored to receive a Wexner Center commission to premiere a new work in the fall of 2016 for"Shawnee, Ohio." Funded through the NEA Art Works grant!
Here is an excerpt from the announcement from the Wexner Center:
"The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced grants to organizations across the country this week, including a $25,000 Art Works grant to the Wexner Center to support creative residencies in visual and performing arts, as well as a the commission of a new work of music:
A composition by Columbus composer/musician Brian Harnetty titled Shawnee, Ohio, an electro-acoustical work using audio from archives from the Appalachian town of Shawnee. The commissioned work will premiere at the Wexner Center on October 28, 2016 and explores the region’s history in coal mining and organized labor as well as its fracking boom today. Harnetty will hold discussions with audiences and high-school students, and will engage with Ohio State students studying Appalachia, environmental issues, and musical composition. He will also perform his work in a historic theater in Shawnee, as well as in Cleveland and Cincinnati. Harnetty’s record label, Dust-to-Digital, will also release Shawnee, Ohio as an album and accompanying book."