Chattanooga Times Free Press - ChattanoogaNow
Musical mingling at the heart of OneBeat
On its face, a program enabling musicians from across the globe to collaborate and perform together is a really cool thing, but OneBeat is so much more than that.
“It’s not just making music for the sake of making music,” says Christie Burns, a local musician/ teacher/activist who was a OneBeat fellow in 2015.
“It’s about making a better world. How can we use all this music to make a better world?”
The 5-year-old program brings emerging musical innovators from around the world together for one month of workshops, collaborations, writing and recording sessions and live performances. The musical melting pot is extraordinary: a harpist from the United States, a vocalist from Zimbabwe, a violinist from Tunisia, an emcee from Cuba.
This year’s fellows, 25 musicians from 16 countries, arrived in Florida two weeks ago. This past weekend, they took the show on the road to New Orleans. They will be in Chattanooga next week, and Burns has been doing some of the legwork getting ready for the visit. The theme for OneBeat 2016 is “Migration,” so Burns reached out to Bridge Refugee Services to be involved in a potluck dinner with the fellows as part of the visit here.
Such cross-mingling of groups and services is at the heart of OneBeat.
“They [ OneBeat] are coming here to pull our local partners together in ways maybe they haven’t before,” Burns says. “That was the whole idea of bringing Bridge into it. The theme is musical migrations, so it’s about the role that music plays in the lives of displaced people.”
The idea behind OneBeat is to use music as a way to break down barriers between individuals, communities and even countries. The fellows spend their days writing new music, learning from each other and other professionals about ways to communicate t hrough music. They spend a few days or weeks in one city and then embark on a tour.
OneBeat is an initiative of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in collaboration with the New Yorkbased music organization Bang on a Can’s Found Sound Nation. A smaller version of OneBeat and its work is Dosti Music Project, which brings musicians from India and Pakistan to the United States to collaborate with American musicians. Like OneBeat, the group spends a month here and visits different cities. It made a stop here in March, thanks in part to Burns and her work with OneBeat.
Elena Moon Park, one of the event’s three co-directors, says the fellows who attend One Beat all have different backgrounds and play different instruments. Not all speak the same language, so they quickly learn several things about themselves and what their OneBeat experience will be like.
One of those things is learning to work with a complete stranger to create new music. They are put into that role almost immediately.
“I think people quickly realize that they are going to want to do way more than they are able to,” she says.
“It forces you to dig down and lose your ego because there is no one here to compare yourself to. You let go of your ego and focus on your longterm musical self and explore other things.”
Chattanoogans will have three opportunities to check out the work being done by the OneBeat musicians.
From 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 4, the OneBeat fellows will join the New World Symphony in Miami Beach for a live interactive online concert using the Chattanooga Public Libary’s low-latency internet connection. A post-concert potluck dinner at Granfalloon is from 6 to 10 p.m. Bring a dish and a $10 donation to share in the food, music and storytelling.
On Wednesday, Oct. 5, from 7 to 10 p.m at Miller Plaza, the 25 musicians will present some of the adventurous and funky original music they have been creating since getting together three weeks ago.