OneBeat, a cultural exchange initiative of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs produced by Bang on a Can's Found Sound Nation, is among the world's leading music diplomacy programs. From September 16 - October 12, 2019, twenty-five innovative and socially engaged musicians from seventeen countries, ranging from Algeria to Cuba to Madagascar to the United States, will participate in an intense month of musical collaboration, public performances, installations, pop-up events and workshops.
Today, OneBeat announces its 2019 ten-day tour throughout the Southeast U.S.:
Sept. 21 at 7:30pm - Timucua White House - Orlando, FL
Sept. 28 at 7:30pm - Atlantic
Center For The Arts - New Smyrna Beach, FL
Sept. 30 at 8pm - Heartwood Soundstage - Gainesville, FL
Oct. 2 at 8pm - ArtsXChange - East Point, GA
Oct. 3 at 8pm - Grocery on Home - Atlanta, GA
Oct. 4 at 6pm - The
High Museum - Atlanta, GA
Oct. 5 at 12pm - Community Day at ArtsXChange - East Point, GA
Oct. 7 at 7pm - Fourth Presbyterian
Church in partnership with Big Ears - Knoxville, TN
Oct. 9 at 7:30pm - The Bijou in partnership with Big Ears - Knoxville, TN
In each location, the OneBeat Fellows will present world premieres of their collaborative works-in-progress in a series of performances, workshops, and interactive public events.
Complete tour information:
www.1beat.org/#events
"It makes so much sense, to use music as a strategy to generate peace and cooperation.
Found Sound Nation, our former Fellows and now our esteemed colleagues, have built through OneBeat a global community of young visionaries, based on a common belief - that music can open hearts, bridge differences and collaboratively create a better world. We're so fortunate that the U.S.
Department of State supports these noble goals," says Pulitzer Prize winning composer and co-founder of Bang on a Can
David Lang.
This year's eclectic musicians include: Rodney Barreto, one of Cuba's leading jazz drummers and member of the
Chucho Valdes Quintet; Nepalese multi-instrumentalist and film music composer Jason Kunwar; pioneering modular Chinese synth designer and sound-artist Meng Qi; Baltimore-based producer, educator and award-winning entrepreneur Kariz Marcel; and virtuosic young Mongolian Yatga player Oyuntuya Enkhbat. To read about all the OneBeat fellows, visit
www.1beat.org/people
The OneBeat tour brings Fellows' musical collaborations, developed during their two-week residency at the Atlantic
Center For The Arts in New Smyrna Beach, FL, to a diverse set of communities across this region of America, connecting with leading community-based organizations, local artists, audiences, and young people to build an even stronger network of musical changemakers and socially-engaged musicians.
Each performance or event will tell a unique story of OneBeat from individual and collaborative perspectives, in venues ranging from DIY theaters to public parks to art museums. Educational and collaborative workshops with local partners are integral to the OneBeat theme of exploring how artists can find innovative ways of locating their art within emerging movements for the betterment of humanity. These collaborations with local social organizations, youth, and artists serve as a launching pad into new ways of thinking about how we experience music.
More information about OneBeat's local partners in each tour city:
Gainesville, FL (Sept 30): In Gainesville, OneBeat partners with PULP Arts, an artist collective and creative arts hub centered around two world-class recording studios and visual art production facilities. PULP supports working artists through opportunities for cross-discipline collaboration, state of the art resources, and meaningful community engagement. OneBeat will make a site visit to their brand new interdisciplinary artist studio + recording facilities, and present a OneBeat performance at the Heartwood Soundstage.
Atlanta, GA (Oct 1 - 6): Atlanta, GA (Oct 1 - 6): OneBeat will spend one week in Atlanta in residence at the ArtsXchange Community Cultural Center. ArtsXchange is a nonprofit, multicultural, multidisciplinary, multi-ethnic, intergenerational arts organization. ArtsXchange was founded in 1984 by poet, essayist, playwright, and longtime teaching artist Alice Lovelace and late poet and activist Ebon Dooley, with the belief that art is an integral component of culture and has the ability to articulate societal issues.
Together they shaped ArtsXchange into a grassroots institution that has supported generations of artists, while making art accessible to marginalized communities. Having recently moved to a new location in East Point, Atlanta, ArtsXchange offers community enrichment events across all artistic disciplines that link arts and artists with the community-at-large. While in residence, OneBeat Fellows will host a community-invited Jam
Session night, lead workshops with award-winning youth development organization Moving In The
Spirit and the tuition-free school for refugee girls Global Village Project, as well as open workshops with the ArtsXchange community. The residency will culminate with a celebratory community day of public, interactive events and performances.
While in Atlanta, OneBeat Fellows will also perform at the DIY venue Grocery on Home, and at the prestigious
High Museum of Art for their First Fridays series, which will feature several intimate performances in the galleries and a collaborative performance with Moving In The
Spirit created during the ArtsXchange residency.
Knoxville, TN (Oct 7 - 9): During OneBeat's final tour stop in Knoxville, TN, OneBeat artists will be hosted by the Big Ears Festival. Founded in 2009, Big Ears explores connections between musicians and artists, effortlessly crossing the boundaries of musical genres and artistic disciplines. Big Ears is a weekend festival of world-class musical performances that celebrates Knoxville's historic theaters, nightclubs, churches, museums, and outdoor spaces with concerts, discussions, interactive workshops, installations, film screenings, surprise collaborations and unexpected artistic collisions. The festival celebrates the never-ending adventure of artistic creation and exploration, and has been called "the most open-minded music gathering in the country" by New Yorker writer
Alex Ross. While in Knoxville, OneBeat will present a panel discussion on global arts communities in collaboration with the multigenerational theatre ensemble Carpetbag Theatre, host workshops with The Joy of Music School and The Change Center, and present a final blowout performance at Knoxville's historic downtown Bijou Theater.
OneBeat alumni form a global network of over 200 musicians, who have created diverse projects addressing major issues facing their communities, including women's empowerment, youth engagement, entrepreneurism and conflict resolution. OneBeat alumni have become TED Fellows, created Sunu Kaddu, a Senegal-based hip-hop education program, established Maskeliade Music School, a training center for aspiring electronic music makers in Moscow, formed the chart-topping pan-Latin band LADAMA, and designed the innovative sonic exchange project, Hear Be Dragons. Alumni projects have reached over 400,000 audience members and over 20,000 youth participants in every region of the world.
Additional information can be found at
www.1beat.org.
