Our tour to the Big Apple and DC with Music for the Ocean was jam-packed and phenomenal!
Leading up to the Big Day
It started on April 30 with an amazing gathering hosted by WINGS Women of Discovery, with much gratitude to Karen Zieff for making it a huge success. After an introduction by Executive Producer and Tela Coral co-Founder, Tiff Duong, we screened the short documentary, The Rebel Reef. The film was followed by a mini-concert by Chad Cannon, who wrote the theme to the film, as well as the score. An incredibly engaged audience joined us for the evening, many of whom showed up again for our concert later in the week.
Meanwhile, I was out in the Hamptons, where I was invited to join a panel celebrating the opening of a new sculpture by Randi Renate at the Parish Museum. The sculpture is a room-sized coral polyp! When you’re inside it, it feels like you’re in a sort of spa space, where you can contemplate what it might feel like to be shrunk the size of a zooplankton. It’s surprisingly relaxing! The panel was delightful, and expertly moderated by the museum’s curator, Corinne Erni. The installation will be at the Parrish for the next two years, so stop by if you happen to be on Long Island.
The next day, Tiff and Chad headed out to the Harbor School on Governor’s Island, where they had the opportunity to tour the Billion Oyster Project. They met some dancing oysters on the ferry dock!
Then, Chad and I headed to C.S. 154, The Harriette Tubman Learning Center in Harlem, where we did a mini-concert and talk for students ranging from pre-K to 5th grade. It was the school’s spirit week and we were scheduled for Beach Day, which was a perfect fit for us. Huge thanks to the students and teachers who made our visit so fun and filled with energy!
A Screening at Lincoln Center
Afterwards, we zoomed down to Lincoln Center and met up with The Rebel Reef film team, including director Brynne Rardin, for a screening of the film as part of an event for students at Juilliard called Art of the Score. Organized by one of Chad’s mentors at Juilliard, Ed Bilous, students were challenged to write scores for shorts by film-makers from all over the world. We were part of a short panel following the screenings. Our film tells the story of Christian Carias, Tela’s only dive master, and of the best surprises was that Christian’s brother Leo came in from New Jersey to see the film on a big screen!
On May 6, Tiff and Chad headed back to Harlem to speak to students at City College of New York. They screened The Rebel Reef and talked about film making and scoring with a group of excited and energized students. We were thrilled that some of them joined us later that evening for our big concert
The Show at Symphony Space
How to describe the amazingness of the Music for the Ocean concert at Symphony Space? New York just brings a kind of energy around performance that is like no where else. Symphony Space is right on Broadway, and even though it’s not in the midst of the theater district, it still feels like it. The area just bustles with creativity.
Will Chen and Evan Murnane, our sound and light designers, couldn’t have set the stage any better. Pianist Hui Wu was electric. We were joined by the fabulously talented harpist Cate Todd, who is also Chad’s sister. The sound of the harp, as well as it’s beauty on the stage brought so much richness and elevated the songs to another level. We were also joined by amazingly talented violinist and cellists from NYC, who made the pieces sing.
I moderated the panel after the show where were honored to be joined onstage with the Coral Restoration Consortium’s Tali Vardi and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Richard Vevers, as well as Tiff. The questions from the audience were incisive. The audience was amazing! We had so much fun talking to everyone after the show, sharing our stories of Tela, and making amazing connections.
On to D.C.
The next morning we jumped on the Acela to D.C. and on Friday May 8, we had an extraordinary visit to the Duke Ellington School of the Arts. As Chad said, I wish I could have gone to school here! It’s a stunning facility that looks like the White House on the outside, but is remodeled in a completely modern vibe inside. There’s a theater that seems to be a suspended wooden jellybean in the middle of the building.
We met with students in the Museum Studies department, and they were awesome! So were their teachers! We did a mash-up presentation of science/film/score, and then had a kind of breakout session where we each got to chat with the students about their interests. That one-on-one connection was really powerful.
Afterwards, we went straight to a Rebel Reef screening/mini-concert sponsored by the Harvard Club of D.C., with great thanks to Tugba Tanyeri-Erdemir for organizing it. We were delighted to, yet again, enjoy the energy of a very engaged and insightful audience, some of whom decided to join us for the full concert the next day.
The Atlas Theater
Our final event of a whirlwind tour was just as fabulous as everything that came before it throughout the week. We played the beautiful Atlas Theater, which was in a very cool part of town. The theater staff couldn’t have been more accommodating or professional. Once again, Will and Even set the stage perfectly. Chad and Hui couldn’t have been more on point – every show just seems to sound better. Cate Todd and her beautiful harp were exquisite. And we were joined once again by an incredibly talented local violinist and cellist. The panel was moderated by the amazing writer Bina Vinkateraman and Tiff and I were joined by environmental journalist, Dawn Reeves to field questions from Bina and the audience. Once again, we were blown away by the audience, and their support for our efforts.
One very cool thing happened that day that deserves a mention. Tiff ran to a copy shop to make some copies of material we could share with concert-goers. She grabbed a lift home and said she was headed to the Atlas Theater. The Lyft driver said, “Are you headed to see Chad Cannon?”
Tiff almost fell over! The Lyft driver, it turned out, was the mother of one of the students we’d visited at the Duke Ellington school the day before. Her daughter came home from school and told her about our visit and what an impression it had made. Such a crazy coincidence! They face-timed the student and the look of surprise on her face was priceless! She and her cousin (who is studying marine science) joined us for the show that night, which was fabulous! It really brought home the importance of getting out into the world and talking about the ocean everywhere you can.
Our concert tours have a dual mission. Not only is our goal to make our oceans less invisible up here on land, we are raising money to build a biobank to protect coral genetics in Tela and the first marine lab on the Honduran mainland. We are thrilled that after this East Coast trip we have raised $86,ooo on the way to our $100,000 goal. We are especially grateful to the Duncan Family and to Chris Frampton for matching grants that amplified our efforts so much. (For more on the biobank facility’s construction, check out our recent post.)
After the show, Chad’s friend, Carlos Simon, who is the Composer-in-Residence at the Kennedy Center, (OK, yeah, a little name-dropping) invited us for a post-show decompress on his rooftop deck. He was a perfect host, treating us to a big spread of charcuterie, some lovely wine, and lots of fabulous stories to share. It was a perfect coda to an amazing week.
