NATURE’S RHYTHMS
He spends his days making music in the Big Apple, but trumpet player, composer and installation artist Sam Nester has discovered that the nature-rich landscape of the Apple Isle is also a perfect place to fuel creative pursuits. Originally from Brisbane, Nester is based in New York, where he teaches at the prestigious Juilliard School and is the artistic director and trumpeter of Bridge Arts Ensemble.
He recently spent four weeks on Bruny Island, recording music made by the local plants — and now the 31-year-old is encouraging other artists to put Bruny in their sights and apply to be part of a new artist residency program.
Nester’s Bruny Island project involved attaching a series of small sensors to plants near Mavista Falls and then recording music created by the natural plant biorhythms.
The electricity that is inside each plant is registered through the leaves and is converted to MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) data which then controls a MIDI instrument, creating a stream of non-repetitive music.
“It’s essentially a series of plants making music in real time,’’ Nester explains of his installation. “With all of the changes that are happening with the plants the music will change — the pitch will change, the rhythm will change. Throughout the day it changes with various environmental conditions; it changes whether the plants are healthy or whether they’re sick.’’
Having a series of contact microphones set up also allows people who visit his installations to participate, turning the environment into a big musical instrument.
His Arcadia concept was originally installed in the greenhouse of top private school St Hilda’s and St Hugh’s on the Upper West Side in New York. But he says bringing it to Bruny Island posed a raft of new challenges as the weather was damp and always changing — an interesting predicament given he was working with sensitive electronic equipment.
“Bruny Island is a truly inspiring place,’’ he says. “The forests, bushlands and pristine beaches have certainly made a lasting impression on me. Standing at the Cape Bruny lighthouse, staring at the southern horizon was positively awe-inspiring.
During the course of the residency in June and July, Nester also captured interviews and oral histories of long-time Bruny residents, which are being woven into instrumental compositions.
Nester visited Bruny as part of a residency from the Bruny Island Foundation for the Arts. Residencies have been so successful on the island that the existing program is now being expanded with a new BRUNY20 fellowship.
The fellowship, valued at $75,000, will be split between three Australian artists, with at least one of them from Tasmania. It is open to all artists, including visual artists, musicians, writers, performers, filmmakers, new media and multi-disciplinary artists.
Each artist will receive four weeks of accommodation on Bruny Island between June and August 2020 to start a new body of work around the theme of environment. Upon returning home, artists will have several months to consolidate the new work, with an exhibition and/or performance on Bruny Island in December 2020. More details can be found at brunyislandfoundation.com. Applications close on October 31.