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Composing in the Wilderness Denali Performance
July 24, 2023 @ 1:00 pm - 4:00 pm
From July 10th-24, nine composers from around the world are spending five days in Denali National Park and Preserve on the “classic” Composing In The Wilderness experience and then working once again with the fabulous performers of Corvus. The trip will be led by dynamic composer and outdoorsman Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis who has been with our program since 2018. This trip has proven to be life-changing to adventurous composers for over ten years now, and each year, it gets just a little bit better.The Denali experience happens in three “movements.”
1. Inspiration: Composers spend over four full days exploring in the backcountry of Denali National Park, traveling with scientists and naturalist guides who help interpret the amazing place. They get dirty, stretch out of their comfort zones, and have the time of their lives.
2. Creation: Composers then go to a secluded location where everyone can get a shower and start working on their compositions. Everyone has just over three days to write chamber pieces inspired by their experience. Instrumentation is chosen at random by drawing from a hat.
3. Culmination: Upon returning to Fairbanks, the composers meet up with the phenomenal musicians of Corvus, and all the pieces are rehearsed for a few days, recorded, and then performed.
This year, the concert is presented at Denali Visitors Center (DVC) auditorium and at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. The DVC concert will be at 1:00pm in the movie theatre inside the Visitor Center. Each piece on the program will focus on some aspect of the experience the composer had in the park with projected images filling the screen above the performers. We find that bringing these pieces “home” to the place that inspired them is really meaningful both to the composers and to the audience.