(Photo courtesy of IN A LANDSCAPE)
Hunter Noack, classical pianist and naturalist will travel with a nine-foot Steinway grand piano across the American West and Canada for 50 concerts in the 9th season of the ground-breaking classical series IN A LANDSCAPE: Classical Music in the Wild. Mountain tops, old growth forests, and sunny meadows replace the traditional concert hall in this series as audiences listen through wireless headphones, wandering afield with the music as a soundtrack to their experience.
Founded in 2016 by Noack, IN A LANDSCAPE operates with a mission to remove barriers to live classical music and to the outdoors. The series partners with national and state parks, with land trusts, conservancies, historical societies, Native American reservations and schools to share live classical music experiences, most often in rural communities where such opportunities are scarce. The series has to date presented 249 concerts featuring 110 guest artists for 50,000 people, many of whom experienced live classical music for the first time. Through the Good Neighbor Program and the intent to make the concerts accessible to all, IN A LANDSCAPE subsidizes ticket pricing at 95% of the concerts, and provides free tickets to locals directly and through partner organizations, distributing over $100,000 in free tickets last year alone. Through the benefit concert program, IN A LANDSCAPE grants money — $114,000 in 2023 — to school music classes, tribal initiatives, rural fire departments, land trusts, and other nonprofit community groups.
With music in magical landscapes, Noack brings together a wide cross-section of people who would otherwise rarely be sharing a concert experience. Cowboys, city folk, children, hipsters, and matrons flock from cities and deserts alike to hear Noack perform. Noack also collaborates with guest artists who are atypical of traditional classical concerts, including poets, Native American musicians, dancers, singers, and visual artists. IN A LANDSCAPE has won multiple awards and has been featured on CBS This Morning, in the Los Angeles Times, and as part of TEDxPortland.
Noack’s nonprofit concert series is named for the piece “In a Landscape” by John Cage. Cage, like other post-war avant garde composers, challenged listeners to reconsider what ‘music’ is and asked us to consider all noise — and its absence — as music. “My challenge,” says Noack, “is to reconsider the environment in which we experience art and life.”
Additional Links:
2024 Concert Series
2023 Review
L.A. Times
CBS This Morning
2024 Concert Locations by State
View the full series calendar at this link
Applegate Lake | Jacksonville, Oregon
Riverfront Park | Salem, Oregon
Newberry National Volcanic Monument | La Pine, Oregon
Warm Springs Reservation | Warm Springs, Oregon
Warm Springs K-8 Academy | Warm Springs, Oregon
Wine Down Ranch | Prineville, Oregon
John Day Fossil Beds National Monument | Dayville, Oregon
Alvord Desert | Princeton, Oregon
Malheur National Wildlife Refuge | Princeton, Oregon
Black Butte Ranch | Sisters, Oregon
Drake Park | Bend, Oregon
Playa Arts & Science Residency | Summer Lake, Oregon
Tetherow Resort | Bend, Oregon
Silver Falls State Park | Sublimity, Oregon
Stoller Family Estate | Dayton, Oregon
Soter Vineyards | Carlton, Oregon
Rose Garden Amphitheater | Portland, Oregon
Dunes Meadow Park | Gearhart, Oregon
Shore Acres State Park | Coos Bay, Oregon
Valley Flora Farm | Langlois, Oregon
Fort Rock State Natural Area | Fort Rock, Oregon
Lewis & Clark College | Portland, Oregon
Maryhill Museum of Art | Goldendale, Washington
Gas Works Park | Seattle, Washington
Orcas Island | Orcas Island, Washington
Icicle Creek Center for the Arts | Leavenworth, Washington
Manito Park | Spokane, Washington
Roosevelt Arch at Yellowstone National Park | Gardiner, Montana
Bitter Root Land Trust | Stevensville, Montana
Teton Regional Land Trust | Victor, Idaho
Kaniksu Land Trust | Sandpoint, Idaho
Woodbury Preserve | Jackson, Wyoming
Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity | Banff, Canada
Folly Mojave – Palm Springs Art Museum | Twentynine Palms, California
Trust for Public Land | San Geronimo, California
McKegney Green | Tiburon, California
Filoli Historic House & Garden | Woodside, California
San Francisco Botanical Garden | San Francisco, California
Jack London State Historic Park | Glen Ellen, California
Shastice Park | Mount Shasta, California
Ford House Museum | Mendocino, California
Fort Ross State Historic Park | Jenner, California
Point Reyes National Seashore | Point Reyes, California
Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy | San Francisco, California
Mineral King Preservation Society | Visalia, California
Sugar Pine Point State Park | Tahoma, California
The Old Runway | Eagleville, California
inalandscape.org • instagram.com/inalandscape • facebook.com/inalandscapemusic