First Fridays at Harwood Museum

October 6th, 2023

4pm-7pm

Movement Explorations 4:30pm and 5:30pm

Free

Come join us the First Friday of every month for after hours museum access and family friendly fun!

October First Friday will feature a variety of interactive and art making opportunities including movement exploration with one of our amazing Open Wall artists, Nadine Lollino of MovementLab, and Origami paper crane making lead by one of Harwood’s new Teaching Artists, Izumi Yokoyama.

About Izumi Yokoyama

Izumi Yokoyama’s intricate line drawings and time-haunted installations explore and embrace human struggles within the context of nature. Apparitional motifs in her works are dark and transcending. The concepts are characterized by the presence of absence in her use of negative space. Yokoyama meditatively threads ephemeral and eternal, while evoking nostalgia for the unknown.

Izumi Yokoyama is a multi-media artist who lives and works in Taos, New Mexico. Born in Niigata, Japan, in 1980, Yokoyama graduated with an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute. Yokoyama’s artworks are presented locally and nationally. Birds of Appetite: Alchemy & Apparition, a 2019 exhibition which featured her work at the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, NM, received critical accolades. Her current and upcoming projects range from book illustrations to a large-scale community mural to a haunting installation. She is thrilled to return to the Harwood Museum this summer for a juried exhibition: Contemporary Art Taos 2020.

This First Friday programming is brought to you by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs.

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Next First Friday | November 3

Gather friends and family for an activity-packed evening out! This free monthly series features performances and opportunities to experience art in the historic setting of our local museum. 

Here in Taos, we can appreciate how impactful kinship with a place and its people can be, and this concert program evokes that idea.  California connects the composers John Cage, John Adams, Reena Esmail and Lou Harrison, and two of the musicians, Elizabeth Baker (violin) and Vicki Ray (piano), in many powerful ways.

The 4 composers and Elizabeth and Vicki have roots in the Golden State and share some intriguing personal connections you will hear about in introductions to the specially selected pieces.  And there will be an opportunity for the community to be a part of the experience of “preparing” the piano for John Cage’s Perilous Night (details to be shared by Taos Chamber Music Group closer to the performance dates).  We complete the circle back to our home state with a local New Mexican musician (new to TCMG), Douglas Cardwell (percussion) who will add his unique thrum to Lou Harrison’s exotic Varied Trio.

Doors at 5:10pm.

All ticket sales for Taos Chamber Music Group Performances are Final Sale.

ABOUT TCMG

There is something different about making music in New Mexico – its endless vistas and open landscapes infuse creativity with a sense of spaciousness and possibility. For the past thirty years the Taos Chamber Music Group has tapped into the Land of Enchantment by presenting the imaginative and inspirational performances for which it has become known. Programs often reflect the beauty of our surroundings as well as the unique cultural diversity of the Taos area, earning TCMG a reputation as one of Northern New Mexico’s most innovative and successful music series.

Taos Chamber Music Group‘s 31st Season opens with California Connections. The program begins with John Cage’s The Perilous Night, a piece that involves altering the instrument sounds by placing plates and screws between a piano’s strings. Guests will have the opportunity to observe this preparation the piano at one of the following times at the Harwood.

PREPARED PIANO DEMONSTRATION:

Private Event for ticket holders only on Saturday, October 7 at 4:30 p.m.

Public Event for the community on Sunday, October 8 at 4:00 pm.

How the Piano Came to be Prepared

in the words of John Cage

In the late ‘thirties I was employed as accompanist for the classes in modern dance at the Cornish School in Seattle, Washington. These classes were taught by Bonnie Bird, who had been a member of Martha Graham’s company. Among her pupils was an extraordinary dancer, Syvilla Fort, later an associate in New York City of Katherine Dunham. Three or four days before she was to perform her Bacchanale, Syvilla asked me to write music for it. I agreed.

At that time I had two ways of composing: for piano or orchestral instruments I wrote twelve-tone music (I had studied with Adolph Weiss and Arnold Schoenberg); I also wrote music for percussion ensembles: pieces for three, four, or six players.

The Cornish Theatre in which Syvilla Fort was to perform had no space in the wings. There was also no pit. There was, however, a piano at one side in front of the stage. I couldn’t use percussion instruments for Syvilla’s dance, though, suggesting Africa, they would have been suitable; they would have left too little room for her to perform. I was obliged to write a piano piece.

I spent a day or so conscientiously trying to find an African twelve-tone row. I had no luck. I decided that what was wrong was not me but the piano. I decided to change it.

Besides studying with Weiss and Schoenberg, I had also studied with Henry Cowell. I had often heard him play a grand piano, changing its sound by plucking and muting the strings with fingers and hands. I particularly loved to hear him play The Banshee. To do this, Henry Cowell first depressed the pedal with a wedge at the back (or asked an assistant, sometimes myself, to sit at the keyboard and hold the pedal down), and then, standing at the back of the piano, he produced the music by lengthwise friction on the bass strings with his fingers or fingernails, and by the crosswise sweeping of the bass strings with the palms of his hands. In another piece he used a darning egg, moving it lengthwise along the strings while trilling, as I recall, on the keyboard; this produced a glissando of harmonics.

Having decided to change the sound of the piano in order to make a music suitable for Syvilla Fort’s Bacchanale, I went to the kitchen, got a pie plate, brought it back into the living room, and placed it on the piano strings. I played a few keys. The piano sounds had been changed, but the pie plate bounced around due to the vibrations, and, after a while, some of the sounds that had been changed no longer were. I tried something smaller, nails between the strings. They slipped down between and lengthwise along the strings. It dawned on me that screw or bolts would stay in position. They did. And I was delighted to notice that by means of a single preparation two different sounds could be produced. One was resonant, the other was quiet and muted. The quiet one was heard whenever the soft pedal was used. I wrote the Bacchanale quickly and with the excitement continual discovery provided.

When I first placed objects between piano strings, it was with the desire to possess sounds (to be able to repeat then). But, as the music left my home and went from piano to piano and from pianist to pianist, it became clear that not only are two pianists essentially different from one another, but two pianos are not the same either. Instead of the possibility of repetition, we are faced in life with the unique qualities and characteristics of each occasion.

The prepared piano, impressions I had from the work of artist friends, study of Zen Buddhism, ramblings in fields and forests of mushrooms, all led me to the enjoyment of things as they come, as they happen, rather than as they are possessed or kept or forced to be.

*This text was written in 1972 as a foreword for Richard Bunger’s The Well-Prepared Piano (The Colorado College Music Press, Colorado Springs, 1973; reprinted Litoral Arts Press, 1981). It was slightly changed for reprinting in John Cage, Empty Words: Writings ’73-’78 (Wesleyan University Press, 1979), and has been further revised for the present circumstance.

Here in Taos, we can appreciate how impactful kinship with a place and its people can be, and this concert program evokes that idea.  California connects the composers John Cage, John Adams, Reena Esmail and Lou Harrison, and two of the musicians, Elizabeth Baker (violin) and Vicki Ray (piano), in many powerful ways.

The 4 composers and Elizabeth and Vicki have roots in the Golden State and share some intriguing personal connections you will hear about in introductions to the specially selected pieces.  And there will be an opportunity for the community to be a part of the experience of “preparing” the piano for John Cage’s Perilous Night (details to be shared by Taos Chamber Music Group closer to the performance dates).  We complete the circle back to our home state with a local New Mexican musician (new to TCMG), Douglas Cardwell (percussion) who will add his unique thrum to Lou Harrison’s exotic Varied Trio.

Doors at 5:10pm.

All ticket sales for Taos Chamber Music Group Performances are Final Sale.

ABOUT TCMG

There is something different about making music in New Mexico – its endless vistas and open landscapes infuse creativity with a sense of spaciousness and possibility. For the past thirty years the Taos Chamber Music Group has tapped into the Land of Enchantment by presenting the imaginative and inspirational performances for which it has become known. Programs often reflect the beauty of our surroundings as well as the unique cultural diversity of the Taos area, earning TCMG a reputation as one of Northern New Mexico’s most innovative and successful music series.

Join Taos creatives as they take center stage at the Taos Center for the Arts to share their visions for the future. Twelve artists and arts leaders will have seven minutes each to share a visual story in this fast-paced night of creative thinking. Collectively, this night of lighting talks is sure to spark new ideas and conversations.

Advance registration coming soon through Taos Center for the Arts.

This program is part of Harwood 100 More: Envisioning the Future, a weekend of programs aimed at sparking community dialogue about how to sustain a vibrant, equitable, and inclusive creative future for Taos.

This event is supported in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Have a creative idea that you need help nurturing? Join Jaclyn Roessel, president and founder of Grownup Navajo, for a special community workshop designed with Taos creatives and visionaries in mind.

A $20 deposit will be charged to hold your space in the workshop. All attendees will be issued a refund.

Roessel will facilitate a visioning workshop to support envisioning a creative work plan for your project. Participants will use creative visioning tools to create a path forward toward their vision of their project. Attendees will leave the session with a clear picture of the next steps toward their future vision, a creative anchor image, and a wireframe of values to guide their project or idea.

This program is part of Harwood 100 More: Envisioning the Future, a weekend of programs aimed at sparking community dialogue about how to sustain a vibrant, equitable, and inclusive creative future in Taos.

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Who is this for?
Anyone with a project or idea that needs some support before becoming real. Anyone with a project (personal/professional/community-focused) that needs some extra care to reach the next phase.

What is included in this workshop?
Jaclyn Roessel is a talented facilitator and coach, who will share these tools to help participants create a plan of action toward their project goals. This workshop will involve reflection time, conversation and sharing about your idea or project with fellow participants, there will be time for some creative expression of choice (collage, sketch, journal prompts).

What do I need to bring?
Depending on your personal practice, you will want to bring utensils that will help you hold your attention on your project. Optional materials: sketch pads, journals, stickers, planners. We will provide materials too – so come as you are and bring your imagination.

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About Jaclyn Roessel
Jaclyn Roessel is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and a proud Diné asdzaan (Navajo woman) who carries interwoven German and Scottish lineage. As a writer, lactivist and a cultural equity & justice consultant, Roessel believes in the power of Indigenous ways of knowing and teachings to support the building of healthy, strong, and just communities.

Their practice as a certified personal coach integrates Roessel’s Diné perspective and belief in the inherent wisdom of their coach partners to navigate challenges and achieve healing transformation in their lives and work. Jaclyn most deeply identifies as a +Liberatory Kinship Coach+. Jaclyn is a member of the Coaching for Healing, Justice and Liberation School where they learn and orient toward growth with some of the most radically heart-powered people on the planet.

Roessel comes to this work from a history of cultural production, curatorship, museum education and offers coach partners a deep understanding of the oppressive nature of non-profit institutions.

They are one of eight co-founders of Native Women Lead. Jaclyn previously held the role of decolonized futures and radical dreams at the U.S. Department of Arts & Culture, where they co-stewarded the Honor Native Land Project. Roessel was appointed to serve on the New Mexico Governor’s Council for Racial Justice and is an organizing member of the Indigenous Milk Medicine Collective. Roessel has recently been appointed to be the Director of the ASU LACMA Fellowship Program Administration at Arizona State University.

Jaclyn lives, plays, farms and makes home in the Pueblo of Tamaya with their husband and children.

This program is supported in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. 

Everyone is invited for the Harwood’s second Community Day full of activities aimed at activating the museum space as an incubator of ideas for the future. Featuring FREE admission for all Taos County Residents as part of Harwood’s Taos Free Sunday program and activities inspired by the Harwood Centennial theme, “Envisioning the Future.”

This program is part of Harwood 100 More: Envisioning the Future, a weekend of programs aimed at sparking community dialogue about how to sustain a vibrant, equitable, and inclusive creative future in Taos.

All Day Make art in the Education Studio

12:30pm Future Visioning” talk by Jaclyn Roessel of Grownup Navajo

1:30pm Panel Discussion: Envisioning the Future for Taos’ Museums

3:00pm Harwood Strategic Plan Town Hall with Eduardo Martinez of Meridian Strategies

The program is supported in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the Institute for Museum and Library Science.

Image by Sam Joseph Photography.

Join The Nature Conservancy for a conversation with a panel of experts to talk about the future of forests and how we can manage our forests better in New Mexico.

TNC’s Forest and Watershed Health Manager for New Mexico Matt Piccarello will moderate this session that will include an opportunity for audience members to ask questions of the experts. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. and panelists will begin at 6 p.m.

RSVP for this event by emailing mmolenda@tnc.org.

First Fridays at Harwood Museum

November 3rd, 2023

4pm-7pm

Free

Come join us the First Friday of every month for after hours museum access and family friendly fun!

Check back for more details on special programming for the evening.

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First Fridays will resume Summer 2024

Gather friends and family for an activity-packed evening out! This free monthly series features performances and opportunities to experience art in the historic setting of our local museum. 

Dave Stryker, guitar

Bob Fox, piano

Terry Burns, bass

John Trentacosts, drums

Guitarist Dave Stryker began his career playing gigs in Harlem with the soulful organist Jack McDuff. Sitting in often with that band was tenor saxophonist, Stanley Turrentine. That led Stryker to a nine year association with Turrentine, joining him at all the major festivals, concert halls and clubs around the world. Over the years Stryker has performed with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Smith, James Moody, Jimmy Heath Eliane Elias, Joe Lovano and many others. He continues to perform with the Dave Stryker Organ Trio, Dave Stryker Eight Track Band and his Blue to the Bone Band. Recent gigs have included Birdland, The Blue Note, Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center, and tours of Europe, Canada and Japan.

Pianist Bob Fox and bassist Terry Burns are actually two of the other band-members with Stryker and Stanley Turrentine, so this performance in the Frank Morgan Taos Jazz Festival will be a reunion concert and sure to be an emotional one for the band.

“Guitarist/composer Dave Stryker possesses a golden tone, urgent style and the kind of heated technique that can blow the roof off any gig. … an urban tale spinner, a sharp stylist able to improve any bandstand, and a storyteller in sound of the highest degree.” – Ken Micallef, JAZZ TIMES, January, 2022

“I have followed Dave Stryker’s playing since his early days in Omaha, through his long stay with Stanley Turrentine… and he just gets better and better– with one of the most joyous feels around.” – Pat Metheny

About Taos Jazz Bebop Society

Taos Jazz Bebop Society is a 501c3 Non-Profit, who’s mission is to make Taos an exciting jazz destination worthy of the best jazz artists. Their dedicated all-volunteer staff strives to attract a vibrant jazz audience and to inspire young listeners to discover the joys of improvised music.

The incomparable, award-winning Gleb Ivanov (piano) will enthrall us again this year in a solo performance featuring Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata and works by Franz Schubert.

This is a treasured Taos Chamber Music Group holiday tradition featuring a musician called a “super-virtuoso” by the NY Times and tickets do sell out quickly.

Doors at 5:10pm.

All ticket sales for Taos Chamber Music Group Performances are Final Sale.

ABOUT TCMG

There is something different about making music in New Mexico – its endless vistas and open landscapes infuse creativity with a sense of spaciousness and possibility. For the past thirty years the Taos Chamber Music Group has tapped into the Land of Enchantment by presenting the imaginative and inspirational performances for which it has become known. Programs often reflect the beauty of our surroundings as well as the unique cultural diversity of the Taos area, earning TCMG a reputation as one of Northern New Mexico’s most innovative and successful music series.

The holiday celebration continues with Gleb Ivanov and our beloved founder, Nancy Laupheimer (flute) delighting us with Maurice Ravel’s Flute Sonate.

Kim Bakkum (piano) and Gleb will impart youthful wonder and imagination with Ravel’s Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Suite).  The holiday treats will also include Ravel’s Jeux d’eau (Gleb solo) and Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Trio No. 1 performed by LP How (violin), Sally Guenther (cello) and Gleb.

Doors at 5:10pm.

All ticket sales for Taos Chamber Music Group Performances are Final Sale.

ABOUT TCMG

There is something different about making music in New Mexico – its endless vistas and open landscapes infuse creativity with a sense of spaciousness and possibility. For the past thirty years the Taos Chamber Music Group has tapped into the Land of Enchantment by presenting the imaginative and inspirational performances for which it has become known. Programs often reflect the beauty of our surroundings as well as the unique cultural diversity of the Taos area, earning TCMG a reputation as one of Northern New Mexico’s most innovative and successful music series.

Special Holiday Matinee!

The holiday celebration continues with Gleb Ivanov and our beloved founder, Nancy Laupheimer (flute) delighting us with Maurice Ravel’s Flute Sonate.

Kim Bakkum (piano) and Gleb will impart youthful wonder and imagination with Ravel’s Ma mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Suite).  The holiday treats will also include Ravel’s Jeux d’eau (Gleb solo) and Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Trio No. 1 performed by LP How (violin), Sally Guenther (cello) and Gleb.

All ticket sales for Taos Chamber Music Group Performances are Final Sale.

ABOUT TCMG

There is something different about making music in New Mexico – its endless vistas and open landscapes infuse creativity with a sense of spaciousness and possibility. For the past thirty years the Taos Chamber Music Group has tapped into the Land of Enchantment by presenting the imaginative and inspirational performances for which it has become known. Programs often reflect the beauty of our surroundings as well as the unique cultural diversity of the Taos area, earning TCMG a reputation as one of Northern New Mexico’s most innovative and successful music series.

Visual and musical arts are interwoven in this program to add some vibrancy and color to the serene, snowy landscape of winter in Taos.  Debra Ayers (piano), Sally Guenther (cello), Laura Chang (viola) and Elizabeth Baker (violin) bring us winter daydreams and Romantic musings in pieces by Johannes Brahms, Ernő Dohnányi and Caroline Shaw.

“While considering my love of Brahms’ piano quartets and my memory of playing them—and more generally how our memories of beloved music evolve over time—I began thinking about the history of still-life paintings.” – Caroline Shaw, Pulitzer prize-winning composer of Thousandth Orange.

Doors at 5:10pm.

All ticket sales for Taos Chamber Music Group Performances are Final Sale.

ABOUT TCMG

There is something different about making music in New Mexico – its endless vistas and open landscapes infuse creativity with a sense of spaciousness and possibility. For the past thirty years the Taos Chamber Music Group has tapped into the Land of Enchantment by presenting the imaginative and inspirational performances for which it has become known. Programs often reflect the beauty of our surroundings as well as the unique cultural diversity of the Taos area, earning TCMG a reputation as one of Northern New Mexico’s most innovative and successful music series.

Special Holiday Matinee!

Visual and musical arts are interwoven in this program to add some vibrancy and color to the serene, snowy landscape of winter in Taos.  Debra Ayers (piano), Sally Guenther (cello), Laura Chang (viola) and Elizabeth Baker (violin) bring us winter daydreams and Romantic musings in pieces by Johannes Brahms, Ernő Dohnányi and Caroline Shaw.

“While considering my love of Brahms’ piano quartets and my memory of playing them—and more generally how our memories of beloved music evolve over time—I began thinking about the history of still-life paintings.” – Caroline Shaw, Pulitzer prize-winning composer of Thousandth Orange.

Doors at 5:10pm.

All ticket sales for Taos Chamber Music Group Performances are Final Sale.

ABOUT TCMG

There is something different about making music in New Mexico – its endless vistas and open landscapes infuse creativity with a sense of spaciousness and possibility. For the past thirty years the Taos Chamber Music Group has tapped into the Land of Enchantment by presenting the imaginative and inspirational performances for which it has become known. Programs often reflect the beauty of our surroundings as well as the unique cultural diversity of the Taos area, earning TCMG a reputation as one of Northern New Mexico’s most innovative and successful music series.

The preeminent pianist and esteemed teacher, Robert McDonald, will join Sally Guenther (cello) and Ruxandra Marquardt (violin) in a tribute to Gabriel Fauré.  Also included will be the Sonatina for violin and cello by Fauré’s student, Arthur Honneger, as well as solo performances by Robert McDonald.

This program presents a logical progression from Romanticism to Fauré and his link to the beginnings of the modern era.  Fauré, perhaps one of the most influential French composers, studied as a youth with Camille Saint-Saëns and together they cofounded the Société Nationale de Musique (1871) to promote new French music.  This program honors not only Fauré but reminds us of the admiration and gratitude due to those that dedicate their lives to teaching others and forging new paths.

Doors at 5:10pm.

All ticket sales for Taos Chamber Music Group Performances are Final Sale.

ABOUT TCMG

There is something different about making music in New Mexico – its endless vistas and open landscapes infuse creativity with a sense of spaciousness and possibility. For the past thirty years the Taos Chamber Music Group has tapped into the Land of Enchantment by presenting the imaginative and inspirational performances for which it has become known. Programs often reflect the beauty of our surroundings as well as the unique cultural diversity of the Taos area, earning TCMG a reputation as one of Northern New Mexico’s most innovative and successful music series.

The preeminent pianist and esteemed teacher, Robert McDonald, will join Sally Guenther (cello) and Ruxandra Marquardt (violin) in a tribute to Gabriel Fauré.  Also included will be the Sonatina for violin and cello by Fauré’s student, Arthur Honneger, as well as solo performances by Robert McDonald.

This program presents a logical progression from Romanticism to Fauré and his link to the beginnings of the modern era.  Fauré, perhaps one of the most influential French composers, studied as a youth with Camille Saint-Saëns and together they cofounded the Société Nationale de Musique (1871) to promote new French music.  This program honors not only Fauré but reminds us of the admiration and gratitude due to those that dedicate their lives to teaching others and forging new paths.

Doors at 5:10pm.

All ticket sales for Taos Chamber Music Group Performances are Final Sale.

ABOUT TCMG

There is something different about making music in New Mexico – its endless vistas and open landscapes infuse creativity with a sense of spaciousness and possibility. For the past thirty years the Taos Chamber Music Group has tapped into the Land of Enchantment by presenting the imaginative and inspirational performances for which it has become known. Programs often reflect the beauty of our surroundings as well as the unique cultural diversity of the Taos area, earning TCMG a reputation as one of Northern New Mexico’s most innovative and successful music series.