Symphony for Nature – Emmy-Nominated Documentary from Owsley Brown Presents – Returns to PBS and Film Festivals, with Broadcasts on San Francisco’s KQED (June 27–29) and Screening in Louisville (July 25)

Nominated this spring for two regional Emmys by the Northwest National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), Symphony for Nature: The Britt Orchestra at Crater Lake – a documentary co-produced by Owsley Brown Presents and the Britt Music and Arts Festival – continues to be shown at film festivals and by PBS stations across the country. This month’s airings include the film’s debut on San Francisco’s KQED (June 27, with additional broadcasts on June 28 and 29), and the documentary will be screened next month at Louisville’s Flyover Film Festival (July 25). Click here for local PBS listings, and here to watch the video trailer for Symphony for Nature: The Britt Orchestra at Crater Lake.

Directed by Anne Flatté, Symphony for Nature first aired last fall on Southern Oregon Public Television (SOPTV) and is widely available for streaming with PBS’s Passport program. Flatté comments:

“The recent NATAS nominations are an honor for many people – first, the exceptional musicians who came together to honor Crater Lake with music, and then the film team that chronicled the story of this incredible world premiere concert. As a filmmaker, I was captivated by the spectacular blue vision of southern Oregon’s Crater Lake, the spiritual place known as ‘giiwas’ to the Klamath Tribes, and the idea of blending image and music together to offer a unique understanding of this natural wonder. I’m thrilled to see how audiences are resonating with this creative story.”

Symphony for Nature chronicles the world premiere performance of Natural History by composer and Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon. This once-in-a-lifetime event took place in summer 2016 at Oregon’s breathtaking Crater Lake, a site sacred to the local Klamath Tribes. It was the lake that inspired Gordon’s work, a Britt Music & Arts Festival commission to mark the centennial of America’s National Park Service. Under the galvanizing leadership of Britt Orchestra Music Director Teddy Abrams, Natural History’s first performance

not only featured the 40 members of the orchestra, a 70-voice choir, and 30 brass players and percussionists, but also a Klamath family drum group known as the Steiger Butte Singers, with several members of the Klamath Tribal Council in attendance.

It has been a busy and exciting year so far for Symphony for Nature, as well as for the work that inspired it. In January, Cantaloupe released a recording of the complete world-premiere performance of Michael Gordon’s Natural History (available on digital platforms including Spotify and Apple Music). In April, Teddy Abrams led a performance of Natural History with the Louisville Orchestra – of which he is Music Director, as he is of the Britt Orchestra – following a special screening of Symphony for Nature at Louisville’s Speed Museum. Soon after, the documentary made its festival premiere at the Ashland Independent Film Festival in Oregon. Ashland Daily Tidings reported, “This film is richly engaging and mysterious, with the musicians joining with drummers and chanters of the Klamath Tribe in its millennia-old homeland, now a national park, to make sounds you never dreamed you would hear.” A recent feature in the Washington Post observed, “The film offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse into how history, science and culture come together in a musical piece that manages the seemingly impossible: giving voice to a body of water.”

More on Symphony for Nature and Michael Gordon’s Natural History

As Symphony for Nature reveals, Crater Lake has been a source of inspiration for many thousands of years. Situated on the original homeland of the Klamath Tribes, it has represented their “giiwas,” or spiritual place, since the volcanic eruption that first formed it some eight thousand years ago. Fed since then by rain and snow, it is now, at 2,000 feet, the deepest lake in the nation and one of the most pristine found anywhere on earth.

Michael Gordon’s music merges subtle rhythmic invention with incredible power, harnessing, as the New Yorker’s Alex Ross put it, “the fury of punk rock, the nervous brilliance of free jazz and the intransigence of classical modernism.” To create the text and score of Natural History, he spent time with the Klamath drum group and researched such influential thinkers on nature as Henry David Thoreau. Envisioning the work as “an experiential spectacle,” Gordon explained:

“It’s about our relationship to the natural world. There’s a Crater Lake symphony going on all year long, we’re just going to add our voices to it.”

Conductor Teddy Abrams adds:

“So much of the piece really is actually about nature, and it’s about our relationship to the natural world, and in a way that I didn’t realize would be quite as philosophical. And I think it starts with the tribe, because their relationship to nature and their way of celebrating nature through music is so deeply spiritual for them.”

Abrams’s world premiere of Gordon’s composition drew heartfelt praise. Oregon Arts Watch wrote:

“The piece evoked geological creation, the region’s first inhabitants, and a sense, simultaneously, of cyclical repetition and unflagging historical motion. When the traditional drumming of the Klamath Tribes members blended with the brass and percussion sections positioned behind the crowd (for maximum 3-D effect!), the impact was transformative and moving. … Unforgettable.”

Similarly, according to Second Inversion,

“Natural History was conceived with a keen awareness of Native American issues and culture. … Pieces like these, which openly confront and explore the serious issues facing our wild spaces, are leading the way.”

Perhaps most movingly, Klamath Tribes Chairman Don Gentry said afterwards:

“I could almost envision the sounds of our ancestors. I didn’t know I was going to be moved to tears, but I was. It incorporated and integrated our native drum, our Klamath language, the animals, and the true spirit of giiwas – Crater Lake.”

Klamath drummers in Symphony for Nature (credit: Anne Flatté, courtesy of Owsley Brown Presents)

Symphony for Nature follows the creation of Gordon’s work, interweaving footage of rehearsals, interviews, and its first performance with legends and stories from early visitors to the sacred space. In its emphasis on music and faith, the project is characteristic of its executive producer, Owsley Brown III, who recently told the San Francisco Chronicle:

“I feel so drawn to these – I don’t know if you’d call them more serious subjects, but a little bit more on the serious side, I guess. I’m hungry for that kind of thing. Life is imbued with profound meaning. I want so badly to be connected with that. That’s what I think I feel the responsibility to share.”

About Owsley Brown Presents

Owsley Brown Presents (OBP) is an independent motion picture production company that produces original contemporary media works with an emphasis on artistic integrity and creative exploration. OBP productions include award-winning, feature-length documentaries that have enjoyed distribution at film festivals, as well as theatrical and broadcast television release worldwide. OBP also develops and produces creative programming for distribution on the worldwide web and other digital platforms. Filmmaker Anne Flatté has produced, directed and edited many independent documentaries, and has focused on music-related subjects over the past 15 years. She is director/producer of the original web series Music Makes A City Now, and producer of Serenade for Haiti (Serenad pou Ayiti), directed by Owsley Brown.

Click here to download high-resolution photos.

https://www.owsleybrownpresents.com/sfn

https://www.owsleybrownpresents.com/

 

Symphony for Nature: The Britt Orchestra at Crater Lake
Director: Anne Flatté
Executive Producer: Owsley Brown
Presenting Public Television Station: Southern Oregon Public Television
A coproduction of Owsley Brown Presents and Britt Music & Arts Festival
Broadcast date: TBD by local PBS station; check local listings here
Running time: 27 minutes

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© 21C Media Group, June 2018