As they began to make plans for their 17/18 season, the PSO reached out to Westwater Arts with a broad idea: celebrating all things Pensacola for a concert scheduled during the Foo Foo Festival, Pensacola’s annual 12-day arts & culture bonanza. From conversations between our Creative Director, Nicholas Bardonnay, and the PSO’s Executive Director and Music Director, Bret Barrow and Peter Rubardt, we created an outline of visual themes and potential photo sources. The goal was to draw upon images created entirely by Pensacolans—both past and present. The project, Pensacola: Then & Now, was born.

For the “Then” section, the PSO tapped the University of West Florida Historic Trust. The Trust houses a vast archives of photos (many not yet digitized) documenting the city’s humble beginnings, its growth over the years, and the colorful medley of people that have called it home. With a topic list in mind some of the PSO staff rolled up their sleeves and helped curate the first cut of historical images that eventually went to Nicholas.

For the “Now” section, the orchestra put out a call for submissions. Local residents were invited to share their own images reflecting their favorite things about living in Pensacola. Food, festivals, architecture, music, sports, aerial stunts of the local Blue Angels, and of course, beach activities were among the topics submitted. The local tourism organization, Visit Pensacola, also joined the call with dozens of stellar images from their archives.

Leading up to the call for submissions announcement, Maestro Rubardt found a perfect musical pairing for Nicholas to work with: the 2nd and 3rd movements from Joseph Curiale’s Awakening, which premiered with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1997. Together the music and imagery highlighted the triumphs, struggles and inextinguishable fun-loving spirit of the Pensacola community.

Also on the orchestra’s masterworks program were Barber’s The School for Scandal, Dvořák’s New World Symphony, and Nicholas performed his National Park Suite, a piece from the Westwater Arts repertoire, set to the 1st and 3rd movements from Copland’s The Tender Land Suite.

Here are two press write-ups by the Pensacola News Journal/USA Today and ABC 3 WEAR.

Early on, the ASO struck up a partnership with the Anchorage Museum to help spread the word and handle the call for photo submissions. The resulting pool of 3,500 impressive community-submitted images provided our artist, Nicholas Bardonnay, with a rich palette to depict the wildlife, and wild life, in Alaska.

The ASO’s project statement captured the spirit of this ambitious project: “North of Ordinary—what makes Alaska so? Is it spectacular panoramas? Abundant wildlife? Auroras? Darkness? Midnight sun? A land both beautiful and harsh? Soothing and dangerous? Is it our people? Are we independent? Rebels? Pioneers? Quirky? Friendly? Reclusive? Urban? Rural? Fun? Boring? Adventurous? Determined? Survivors? Adaptive? What compels us to be here?”

Together with ASO Music Director Randall Craig Fleischer, we selected the lovely first movement from Copland’s Tender Land for the choreography. Also on the program was the world premiere of Sagaland, which Nicholas created to showcase the epic volcanic landscapes of Iceland. Our double-concert collaboration was a big hit with the ASO’s audience; we had dozens of enthusiastic audience members approach us afterwards. Dana Anderson, a concertgoer, said that she “didn’t want to blink!” during the performance.

With all of this local flavor and history as a backdrop—and with their 35th anniversary approaching—it was only natural that the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra, based in Lafayette, approached us about commissioning a locally inspired musical-visual tribute to celebrate their city’s and region’s rich heritage and special, joie de vivre way of life.

The ASO and Maestro Mariusz Smolij were by no means strangers: this was Westwater Arts’s 4th collaboration with the ASO and fifth with Mariusz. In fact, in 2018 Westwater Arts traveled to Poland for a whole month to participate in a four-orchestra tour that Mariusz helped spearhead. The community collaboration idea was something that Mariusz and Nicholas had thrown around before, but after their Polish tour together, they started to work out the nuts and bolts alongside the ASO’s staff.

As with any new project, the music is paramount for the character, choreography and appropriateness of the visual subjects and concert theme. Mariusz had just the work in mind, Virgil Thomson’s Acadian Songs and Dances, which was originally composed for the 1948 film Louisiana Story.

Next came the gathering of images from the community itself, and for that the ASO enlisted the help of two organizations. Lafayette Travel used their extensive reach in the community to collect all of the contemporary submissions from area residents. They also made their huge image collection, featuring all-things-Acadiana, available to Nicholas to select from. The second project partner was the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana—Lafayette. They house an extensive historical image archive documenting many aspects of Acadiana’s early days through nostalgic, and fascinating, black and white photographs. Between the two photo partners and all of the submissions, Nicholas had close to 3,500 images to work with. Because of the past and present sources, the project had a unique “then & now” quality, making for many captivating—and at times humorous—comparison points, while reinforcing the idea that people (Cajuns included) have been fundamentally the same for centuries.

Fast forward half a year later, the concert “This is Us” materialized from the stage at Lafayette’s Heymann Performing Arts Center and ushered in the premiere of the new multimedia piece, titled This is Us: Sights & Sounds of Acadiana. The program opened with Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and included the 2nd & 4th movements from Dvořák’s New World Symphony and Liszt’s Les Préludes. Additionally, Nicholas premiered the Beethoven arrangement of his National Park Suite visual concerto, set to the universally beautiful Adagio from the 9th Symphony. That work, in context with the universal appeal of the national parks, provided a broad and beautiful context from which to appreciate the distinctiveness of Acadiana’s lands, people and culture.

Music Director Christopher Wilkins has been a longtime champion of photochoreography—this was our 5th collaboration in Akron—so the concept and music selection for the Cuyahoga piece came together quickly. To oversee the photo submission process, the ASO partnered directly with Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

Over four months we received more than 1,600 photo submissions, showcasing Cuyahoga Valley through the seasons. The image subjects ranged from landscapes, wildlife and Cuyahoga’s impressive waterfalls to park visitors hiking, biking, trail running, or hitching a ride on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad. The quality and variety of the photography provided a rich palette for the eventual multimedia production.

The resulting concert, “National Parks: Sights and Sounds,” included the new Cuyahoga piece plus three of our repertoire pieces: National Park Suite, Reflections of the Spirit and Grand Canyon Country, set to music selections by Copland, Barber and Grofé, respectively. To open the concert, there was also a thoughtful invocation and handheld-drum performance by Otto Braided Hair Jr. from the Northern Cheyenne tribe, who have maintained a strong connection to the Akron-Cuyahoga region.

The initial brainstorming for the local project began after our first collaboration with the NSO and Music Director Adam Flatt two years prior. Being such a scenic area, there was already an enthusiastic base of local photographers connected through the Yaquina Bay Art Association Photographers organization. Those members not only submitted many gorgeous images themselves, but also helped to get the word out and took the time to participate in a special educational outreach program with area youth. For the latter, a group of photographers worked alongside the University of Oregon–Corvallis and the local 4H chapter to instruct young people on basic photography skills, and through a couple photographic field trips, the children provided their own images for the project.

An additional project perspective came from a partnership with the Lincoln County Historical Society. They had a treasure trove of early photographs depicting the land, people and activities of the area, and as with most historic sources, there were a good deal of parallels with the present, making for especially meaningful connection points with the submitted photography.

All in all, 2800 images came cascading in from the historical and contemporary sources, which was a great palette for Nicholas to assemble the final piece. For the choreography, Nicholas and Maestro Flatt arrived at Copland’s Our Town. The music’s combination of nostalgia, sweetness and vibrancy was the perfect emotional mix to complement the imagery. The subject matter in the piece included local recreational favorites like kayaking and surfing, an homage to the local fishing industry, wildlife of both land and sea, community organizations and events, portraiture of local residents and shop owners, iconic landmarks like the area’s lighthouses, bridges and classic harbor, and of course, those staggeringly beautiful Pacific landscapes.

In keeping with the Pacific Northwest-inspired theme, the NSO also programmed Nicholas’s piece Pacifica, which he photographed during the moody winter months in the coastal regions of Washington and Oregon. Pacifica was paired with Liadov’s The Enchanted Lake for an immersive concert experience that further emphasized the special qualities found in the Northwest.

Together, the organizations submitted hundreds of photographs from their archives depicting the good work their staff and volunteers do every day—as well as those being served. From that generous pool of images, we were able to choreograph a short but dynamic tribute to the people who are making Boulder a better place to live, set to Copland’s stirring Fanfare for the Common Man.

Many of the nonprofits involved staffed information tables in the hall’s lobby to interact with audience members before the concert and during intermission. Coincidentally, during the week of the concert a large-scale forest fire encroached on Boulder, increasing the sense of community togetherness surrounding the concert.

For the concert program, Conductor Michael Butterman dovetailed the performance of Bravo Boulder with our historical concert piece The Eternal Struggle, which depicts another hero, Abraham Lincoln, and the bravery and sacrifice of everyday citizens during both the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. The unique combination of community focus, programming, and external circumstances made for a very memorable concert.

Amateur and professional photographers of all ages, members of the Peoria Camera Club, as well as occasional snapshooters, were all invited to participate. Over 1200 images came streaming in through the HFO’s project upload page and they covered a wide range of topics like: local landscapes, farm scenes, candid portraits, animals and plants (both wild and the “farm variety”), sports, cityscapes from around Peoria and other Central IL towns, and maybe an old red barn or two : )

With so many facets of the Heartland at his fingertips, Nicholas went through the process of curating and eventually choreographing the imagery to the selected music. For that, Maestro Commanday had the perfect pairing in mind, the 3rd and 4th movements from Steve Heitzeg’s Symphony to the Prairie Farm. Both movements have a distinct character from one another, allowing for multiple visual topics to be explored in a series of short vignettes.

Additionally, the HFO organized a photo exhibition to take place in their venue’s lobby. Each of the participating photographers were asked to submit two of their personal favorites. The images decorated the lobby for over a month and there was a reception held in honor of the participants the night of the concert. All of this local fanfare also led to a nice mention in the League of American Orchestra’s HUB e-newsletter.

The concert itself, also called “Heartland Portraits,” featured an All-American program which included Daugherty’s Reflections on the Mississippi for Tuba & Orchestra and the 1st and 3rd movements from Copland’s A Tender Land suite. For the latter, Nicholas presented his National Park Suite visual concerto. The contrasting local and national themes during the concert made for a dynamic, multi-layered audience experience, while further highlighting why the Heartland is such a special place to live and grow.

The impetus for the new community piece was the TSO’s desire to celebrate—and tip its own hat—to the beauty and recreational opportunities that exist right in Toledo. Like many cities in the Great Lakes region, the “Glass City” saw an industrial boom that eventually faded. So Toledo is now remaking itself, and in the process the city set aside large parcels of undeveloped land for the sake of keeping its people and its ecosystem healthy. Many of the city’s Metroparks center around the Maumee River, which runs right past downtown Toledo on its way out to Lake Erie.

Early on in the project the TSO partnered with Metroparks Toledo, the organization charged with overseeing the park system. They also attracted the attention of Toledo.com, which offered a space for project participants to upload their image submissions, in addition to providing advertising for the project and the forthcoming concert.

After several months, at the close of our submission window, we received over 1,500 submissions from a wide spectrum of Toledo-area amateur and professional photographers as well as hand-picked selections from the vast digital archives of Metroparks Toledo itself. Our artist Nicholas Bardonnay sorted, selected, and then finally choreographed the imagery to a wonderful contemporary musical work chosen by the TSO: the second and fourth movements from Evan Chamber’s Four Sacred Places. Chambers, an Ohio native, composed the work back in 2014 as part of a TSO commission honoring four of Toledo’s Metroparks. Our 2017 community project gave the TSO an opportunity to revisit the work and give it additional meaning and dimensions through a visual medium.

The resulting concert, led by the TSO’s talented Resident Conductor Sara Jobin, also featured two nice visual counterpoints to the locally themed project from our repertoire. National Park Suite, set to Dvořák’s beautiful Largo movement, showcases dozens of National Parks and Monuments from across the country. Closing out the program was our lively piece Rodeo!, which captures not only a small-town rodeo from behind-the-scenes, but a broader portrait of life in the lively and beautiful American West.

The enthusiasm of the audience at the sold-out concert made for a really special night.

From biking, rock climbing and rodeo to solar energy and craft beer, Fort Collins has something for everyone. Shortly after a collaboration in Louisiana with Maestro Wes Kenney, the Fort Collins Symphony approached Westwater Arts to create a multimedia portrait of their energetic community.

The FCS received over 500 community photographs in response to their call for submissions, and their partners, the City of Fort Collins and Visit Fort Collins, opened their photo archives as well. Combined, these sources created a diverse visual palette for multimedia artist Nicholas Bardonnay to put together the resulting piece, which the FCS titled Fort Fun!

The music pairings were short and lively: Nicholas choreographed Fort Fun! to Richard Meyer’s A Fiddler’s Fancy and Calvin Custer’s Central Coach Special. Adding to the excitement was a photo contest. The audience voted on their favorite three images, and each winner received their photo, framed, and a set of FCS concert tickets.

Symphony magazine wrote about this special collaboration in “The Score” section for their Summer 2016 edition. You can read the brief article “Community Lens” here. The FCS “Image-ination” concert also featured two pieces from the Westwater Arts repertoire: Pacifica, set to Mahler’s Adagietto, and Reflections of the Spirit, set to Barber’s Adagio.

The musical selections for the visual piece were newly composed by two Singaporeans, Eric Watson and Law Wai Lun. During the production stage recordings of the music did not yet exist, so we used MIDI versions for the initial choreography. The photography for the piece we hand-picked from the vast 25-year SPH photojournalism archives.

Singapore is a relatively young country, so the photo archives at SPH document much of the country’s history as well as its unique multicultural mix. When blended with the music, the result was a visual-musical montage aptly titled Portrait of Singapore. Some of the topics included Singapore’s cityscape, its people, multicultural heritage, history, diverse religions, festivals, sports, outdoor markets, and the island’s coastal and jungle surroundings.

The two gala concerts were held in the Esplanade, the country’s largest performing arts space, and featured music from both East and West to reflect Singapore’s history as a cultural crossroads. Two Chinese musical works, Torrents of the River and Night Thought, featured a soloist performing the exotic guanzi and jinghu reed and string instruments. Also on the program was Vanishing Forest, one of our existing concert pieces, which depicts the beauty and diversity of the tropical rainforest and is set to Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending.

The resulting triple concert series “Agriculture and the Arts: Growing Together” was the first of its kind, and led to the creation of three new community pieces collectively titled Our Fields, Farms and Families.

Over 3,000 photos were received from a variety of sources: area amateur and professional photographers, 4-H and Future Farmers of America (FFA) student clubs, and over 50 local farms. During the concerts, when the SSO’s Music Director Peter Stafford Wilson asked audience members to stand if they were past or present members of the FFA or 4-H, and over half of the sold-out crowd rose to their feet.

To further compliment the concert theme, Maestro Wilson programmed musical selections by Copland, Virgil Thomson’s The Plow that Broke the Plains, as well as a unique work by contemporary composer Steve Heitzeg, Symphony to the Prairie Farm, that incorporated an array of percussion instruments made from prairie grasses, stones, farm implements and buffalo bones.

Among the eight partnering organizations that helped support the project and get the word out to their constituents were the Clark County Farm Bureau, The Ohio State University Extension, the Clark County Heritage Center, and the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation. The novelty of the concert theme and the popularity of the event garnered an Associated Press article that circulated across 52 newspapers nationwide.

For the musical component of the new piece, the GJSO commissioned Monument to Color and Light, an original eight-minute composition by Eric Ewazen.

The collaboration joined the GJSO together with several other project partners: the National Park Service, who manages the Monument, as well as the local newspaper and many of the area’s photographers and outdoor enthusiasts.

The resulting 700+ photo submissions covered a range of topics, from the majestic desert scenery to the activities of local outdoor thrill seekers. The National Park Service and Grand Junction’s The Daily Sentinel provided additional collections of black and white historical photography showing the Monument’s progression over the years.

“A Monumental Celebration” was the symphony’s season opener, preceded by two packed educational concerts as well as a family concert. Before each concert, a uniformed National Park Service official reflected from the stage about how the collaboration came together and their appreciation for the community’s many years of support. For the GJSO, the concerts brought about two new sponsors and helped build a nice partnership with the National Park Service.

In the image collection were early photographs taken by Peter Britt—the festival’s namesake and a celebrated philosopher king—of the festival’s hometown in Jacksonville. The sprawling hillsides of his family’s estate still serve as the festival’s concert grounds today.

Contemporary photographs, however, were the main focus of the visual piece, which emphasized the festival’s community and educational initiatives, complemented by portraits of audience members, musicians and guest artists, among other topics.

With much fanfare, the August anniversary concert commenced for a large audience under the stars. The 15-minute celebratory piece we assembled was set to Copland’s expressive Tender Land Suite. Also on the program were Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concerto No. 2 and Respighi’s wonderful Pines of Rome. As the concert title suggests, it was a night filled with “Music, Memories, and Magic.”