It takes a village: sound practices at Music Box Village
Music Box Village
review by Paul Oswell
The cacophony dies down. The electronic pulses, ethereal chimes and thudding drumbeats fade, the tens of instruments played by the crowds of adults and children suddenly silent. We all face a metal telephone box. The eight or so women crammed inside it sing a Balkan folk song, their hands and feet beating a rhythm on the box’s frame. As they finish, an all-male choir appears behind us and the choirs trade songs, each time moving between small wooden houses. Melodies float over improvised sounds from various contraptions built into the striking wooden structures.
It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon, and this is a pop-up performance at the Music Box Village, an interactive musical installation in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. From the outside, the Village is a fortified circular encampment, the size of a large circus ring. Inside are a dozen small wooden ‘houses’ of varying sizes. They are each very different – a shrine, a market stall, a water tower - and they each conceal musical treasures, there to be found by curious visitors.
Programme director Jay Pennington, shows me around. He and co-Director Delany Martin founded the organization behind the venue, New Orleans Airlift. “We began in 2005 to help New Orleans artists survive the lack of audiences after Hurricane Katrina,” he says. “I was traveling and Delaney was in London, and we knew we needed to get the artists out into the world, make some money and take it back to New Orleans so that people could stay there. We started in Berlin, ferrying artists in and out of the city – a cultural airlift.”
Back home, Pennington and Martin encouraged collaboration between the city’s diverse artistic communities. The old cottage next door to Pennington’s house was falling apart, with the city’s approval, he and his team artistically repurposed the materials. “We started to think about the rhythmic and musical nature of New Orleans,” he says. “We took that original wood and tried a musical kind of architecture and it developed into the idea of a music box village.”
As the nascent village took shape, Airlift was commissioned to build similar installations in Shreveport (Louisiana), Tampa (Florida) and even Kiev (Ukraine). As a permanent space in New Orleans emerged, houses from these villages came back to populate it, together with new houses, built on site.
The houses are mostly collaborative efforts between musicians and art installation engineers. In one house, floorboards creak with high-pitched notes. In another, ceiling fans whirl and form harmonic hums. Windows open and manipulate synthesizers, whistles and horns are attached to levers and of course myriad drum kits are fashioned from just about every material.
The feeling is one of an adventure playground and it’s a popular spot for families with children who love to make noise. “People come here with their kids every weekend,” says Pennington. “We don’t see adults glued to their phones. You can actually play with your kids and it’s scaled for adult humans – particularly musical humans.”
On public days, pop-up performances are sometimes scheduled, such as today’s choirs – one local, one on tour from the Republic of Georgia. “Back home, some people even describe our music as ‘jazz’,” says Giorgi Khukhunaishvili of the visiting group, Adilei. “So we are happy to be here, where jazz is alive.”
The Village’s concert program values collaboration above all. “We find different musicians to ‘play’ each house,’ says Pennington. “Rappers, classical, jazz people…they don’t even necessarily know each other. We try and lead them through three or four days of rehearsal to create a semi-improvised experience.”
The Village is ripe for risk and experimentation, be it from European band Gogol Bordello or New Orleans luminaries, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Local multi-media showman Quintron used all the houses for an immersive orchestral arrangement, others use the houses selectively. No two shows are the same. “It’s challenging, making magic happen,” says Director Delaney Martin. “But it’s a hugely collaborative effort that works by having so many great people involved.”
Alita Edgar, Program Director, agrees. “What I appreciate the most is turning trash into dreams with friends,” she says, smiling. Ideally, three new houses will be added annually with others retired to retain a sense of unpredictability. “My dream is for people to come here not knowing who is going to be playing or what it’s going to sound like,” laughs Pennington. “It might be something you love or hate, but we want to gently push people to do a little work. Experiments are exciting, but only if they can fail.”
‘Work’ isn’t what springs to mind watching the young families and grown adults running around hitting things and honking horns and amplifying electronic tones. In the afternoon sun, there’s only creativity, spontaneity and a liberating sense of fun that doesn’t – thankfully for me – require a single jot of musical ability. (PO)
Music Box Village Website
More New Orleans Attractions!
review by Paul Oswell
The cacophony dies down. The electronic pulses, ethereal chimes and thudding drumbeats fade, the tens of instruments played by the crowds of adults and children suddenly silent. We all face a metal telephone box. The eight or so women crammed inside it sing a Balkan folk song, their hands and feet beating a rhythm on the box’s frame. As they finish, an all-male choir appears behind us and the choirs trade songs, each time moving between small wooden houses. Melodies float over improvised sounds from various contraptions built into the striking wooden structures.
It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon, and this is a pop-up performance at the Music Box Village, an interactive musical installation in the Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans. From the outside, the Village is a fortified circular encampment, the size of a large circus ring. Inside are a dozen small wooden ‘houses’ of varying sizes. They are each very different – a shrine, a market stall, a water tower - and they each conceal musical treasures, there to be found by curious visitors.
Programme director Jay Pennington, shows me around. He and co-Director Delany Martin founded the organization behind the venue, New Orleans Airlift. “We began in 2005 to help New Orleans artists survive the lack of audiences after Hurricane Katrina,” he says. “I was traveling and Delaney was in London, and we knew we needed to get the artists out into the world, make some money and take it back to New Orleans so that people could stay there. We started in Berlin, ferrying artists in and out of the city – a cultural airlift.”
Back home, Pennington and Martin encouraged collaboration between the city’s diverse artistic communities. The old cottage next door to Pennington’s house was falling apart, with the city’s approval, he and his team artistically repurposed the materials. “We started to think about the rhythmic and musical nature of New Orleans,” he says. “We took that original wood and tried a musical kind of architecture and it developed into the idea of a music box village.”
As the nascent village took shape, Airlift was commissioned to build similar installations in Shreveport (Louisiana), Tampa (Florida) and even Kiev (Ukraine). As a permanent space in New Orleans emerged, houses from these villages came back to populate it, together with new houses, built on site.
The houses are mostly collaborative efforts between musicians and art installation engineers. In one house, floorboards creak with high-pitched notes. In another, ceiling fans whirl and form harmonic hums. Windows open and manipulate synthesizers, whistles and horns are attached to levers and of course myriad drum kits are fashioned from just about every material.
The feeling is one of an adventure playground and it’s a popular spot for families with children who love to make noise. “People come here with their kids every weekend,” says Pennington. “We don’t see adults glued to their phones. You can actually play with your kids and it’s scaled for adult humans – particularly musical humans.”
On public days, pop-up performances are sometimes scheduled, such as today’s choirs – one local, one on tour from the Republic of Georgia. “Back home, some people even describe our music as ‘jazz’,” says Giorgi Khukhunaishvili of the visiting group, Adilei. “So we are happy to be here, where jazz is alive.”
The Village’s concert program values collaboration above all. “We find different musicians to ‘play’ each house,’ says Pennington. “Rappers, classical, jazz people…they don’t even necessarily know each other. We try and lead them through three or four days of rehearsal to create a semi-improvised experience.”
The Village is ripe for risk and experimentation, be it from European band Gogol Bordello or New Orleans luminaries, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Local multi-media showman Quintron used all the houses for an immersive orchestral arrangement, others use the houses selectively. No two shows are the same. “It’s challenging, making magic happen,” says Director Delaney Martin. “But it’s a hugely collaborative effort that works by having so many great people involved.”
Alita Edgar, Program Director, agrees. “What I appreciate the most is turning trash into dreams with friends,” she says, smiling. Ideally, three new houses will be added annually with others retired to retain a sense of unpredictability. “My dream is for people to come here not knowing who is going to be playing or what it’s going to sound like,” laughs Pennington. “It might be something you love or hate, but we want to gently push people to do a little work. Experiments are exciting, but only if they can fail.”
‘Work’ isn’t what springs to mind watching the young families and grown adults running around hitting things and honking horns and amplifying electronic tones. In the afternoon sun, there’s only creativity, spontaneity and a liberating sense of fun that doesn’t – thankfully for me – require a single jot of musical ability. (PO)
Music Box Village Website
More New Orleans Attractions!