Schedule

Flowerpot Music

Illustration by Daniel Greenfeld of small figures making music with a flowerpot

Music on June 21 can come from anyone, anywhere, and anything – even flowerpots.

Flowerpot Music, written by award-winning composer Elliot Cole and directed by percussionist Peter Ferry, is a composition for an unlikely but beautiful percussion instrument – the flowerpot! Bell-like tones are passed from performer to performer in improvised gestures called “blooms” that sweep through the group. The piece is written in simple prose, and can be performed by non-musicians and musicians alike.

Cole and Ferry created a special online version of the composition for Make Music Day 2020. Performances of Flowerpot Music by over two dozen groups from around the United States were live-streamed continuously for 9 hours on June 21st.

Check it out now!

Interested in being a part of a performance in 2021? CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP!

Photo of composer Elliot Cole Elliot Cole, Composer
 
Elliot Cole is a composer and “charismatic contemporary bard” (New York Times) whose music “evokes sparkling icicles of sound” (Rolling Stone). He has performed his music with Grammy winners Roomful of Teeth, Grammy nominees A Far Cry and Metropolis Ensemble, as well as Alkemie Early Music Ensemble, Projeto Arcomusical, the Lucerne Festival Academy, and as a member of the book-club-band Oracle Hysterical. His percussion music has been performed by over 250 percussion ensembles all over the world. He is on faculty at The New School and Juilliard Evening Division, and also runs a music school for incarcerated men at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, NY.
Peter Ferry - photo by Marquisha Lu Peter Ferry, Artistic Director
 
Acclaimed as “the ingenious percussionist Peter Ferry,” (Chicago Sun-Times), Peter Ferry is a young American percussion soloist re-imagining classical performances around the world through contemporary repertoire projects and innovative artistic collaborations. Ferry has been a guest artist at dozens of universities as well as the Zeltsman Marimba Festival in New Brunswick, NJ, and has stepped in as a guest percussionist with acclaimed ensembles Alarm Will Sound, Third Coast Percussion, Ensemble Dal Niente, and Eighth Blackbird. With Alarm Will Sound, Ferry serves as the Assistant Director of Artistic Planning, envisioning and managing the artistic activities of one of the world’s leading contemporary music ensembles.