Farming

Written and Composed by Ted Hearne

Commissioned and Performed by: The Crossing

Director: Ashley Kelly Tata

Conductor: Donald Nally

Production Artwork Design + Community Engagement Dramaturg: Nia Easley

Sound Design: Paul Vazquez

Costume Design: Rebecca Kanach

Lighting Design: Carolina Ortiz + Pablo Santiago (US); Gertjan Houbin (Netherlands)

Rohan Chander, keyboard/electronics
Viva DeConcini, guitar
John Grecia, keyboards
Taylor Levine, guitars and slide guitar
Clara Warnaar, percussion
Ron Wiltrout, percussion

Link to Morning Edition piece on NPR

Performed at Kings Oaks Farm, PA; The Schurr Theater at the Big Sing Festival in The Netherlands (Producer, Neil Wallace); Caramoor in Katonah, NY

The piece is about “farming” and what the legacy that the mentality of a practice of "farming" - as leasing of land - has left on our land, agri- and business practices at large. The music is set to letters written by William Penn about the Lenape people in the period leading up to the appropriation of the land on which they lived. This language - or maybe worldview - is juxtaposed with language from various talks given by Jeff Bezos about Amazon. Interspersed throughout and kneeing these two sources are movements set to posts and tweets from UberEats and Farmer's Fridge - yeah - that one in the airports where you've ordered a jar of veggies when it seemed like the "healthiest" option.

Over the course of these two years I've had the incredible opportunity to collaborate with a slew of deeply talented, generous and dedicated artists practicing in various mediums. The Crossing, led by Donald Nally presented 24 singers - more if you count all those who participated in workshops over the years - who offer a singular virtuosity. If you've heard them sing any of their works you know what I mean. It's a particular kind of instrument for a composer to write for and performer to direct. Staging this felt like working on a choral work from Ancient Greece out of which a single voice will step, declare an agon and there we are with a protagonist executing actions in time and space. Boom. Theater. One of the other unique experiences on this one was working with the wildly talented visual artist Nia Easley. Nia is a Chicago-based visual artist with a practice that engages, among other topics, methods of design production. She created an overall design aesthetic for the world of Farming - fonts, color palette, logos, etc - and created an installation of road signs that contextualize a discourse around the work. She also acted as our community engagement dramaturg and traveled around the greater Philadelphia area linking up with agriculture students at community colleges, food justice organizations and the Lenape Center among other orgs and groups to present our work and invite guests and reach audiences who may not otherwise be in the field of vision of a typical development department. The lighting designers, Pablo Santiago and Carolina Ortiz deftly maneuvered creating a lighting design that could function outdoors as the sun was setting on the land. While in situ, Carolina quickly pivoted to adapting the design to work within the covered airline hangar on the property. When we traveled to the Netherlands Gertjan Houbin stepped in and shepherded the original design into an indoor setting making something that looked complete and intentional in less than 24 hours. Rebecca Kanach fabricated over 30 costumes, not only for the singers and the band members but for the filming that happened a few weeks prior to the production itself. And about that filming: we partnered with Peter English who worked with Ted and I to create a teaser-trailer of the work that is a wee glimpse into the total world that we have built around this production. 

-From TataTime Newsletter sent 7.9.23