Savor The Sound

In the Winter of 2022 I was commissioned by the director of Build Trybe, Theodore Bunch, to create visual music projections for their annual fundraising event Savor the Sound. Build Trybe is a local non-profit program, under the umbrella of Cornerstones of Care, that provides farming and vocational training for foster care youth in Kansas City. This event is not your typical fundraiser but instead offers a unique multi sensory experience by facilitating collaborations between music, culinary, and visual arts. Creative directors Christine Dong and Calvin Arsenia curated the evening by bringing Chef Celina Tio, Xion Soundwaves, and myself together to create the evening’s entertainment. In the design phase we all began to share our individual work with each other to find common ground. At Chef Tio’s crossroads restaurant, The Belfry, she prepared experimental dishes for us to taste to use as inspiration for the music and visuals. Xion Soundwaves hosted the team in their rehearsal space to gather even more inspiration and I screened a selection of my previous work for their benefit. All together I created 30-minutes of visual music content, using a mix of pre-rendered videos and real-time generative animation including an improvisational song. As part of the Savor the Sound ethos of living in the moment, that evening, the musicians and I were given a taste of the desert, then we retreated to the green room to write a song and develop the visuals in about 20-minutes to be performed as dessert was being served. The following year in February of 2024 I was again asked to participate in Savor the Sound. With performers Calvin Arsenia, Cera Impala, and Simon Huntley, and returning Chef Tio, we again curated an evening of entertainment. This time I provided multiple projectors with preloaded content to use as texture on the performers in the show taking on more of an installation format than visual music performance. The success of both of these events has led to even more collaborations between Calvin Arsenia and myself.

Savor The Sound 2024