Experience four days of interactive, immersive, and multisensory events at Olbrich Botanical Gardens from Wednesday, August 12 through Saturday August 15, including a two-day spatially composed Sound Garden installation by composer and NeuroArtist JG Everest. The NeuroArts Festival will have a variety of programming centered on deepening audiences’ connection with the natural environment and with their Madison community, including participatory art workshops, sound installations within the Gardens, and collaborations with local performance groups. All events are free and open to the public; workshops will require advance registration. No prior experience necessary. This event was organized by the community curation project, LAB^4.
Sound Garden with JG Everest:
•Friday, August 14, 1:00-8:00pm
•Saturday, August 15, 10:00am-6:00pm
Composer, Director & Historian JG Everest is a multi-disciplinary artist working at the intersections of engagement, ecology, history & the emerging field of NeuroArts through a variety of collaborative place-making practices. He creates site-specific performance installations that connect the histories, ecology & cultures of places & communities, using spatial sound design as an integral compositional element. He has worked as music director & sound designer, as well as performer for many projects & performing ensembles, including over a decade each with Catalyst Dance and Roma di Luna. He regularly designs & leads integrative workshops and classes that connect participants to community, their own creativity, and the natural world, through a variety of disciplines and practices. He has brought his immersive, site-specific “Sound Garden” installations to outdoors sites in the UK, Canada, and across the USA. He was a 2019 McKnight Artist Composer Fellow, and MNPAiR Artist in Residence at Wild River State Park 2024-25.
I had the chance to catch up with JG Everest ahead of this mind-opening event at Olbrich Botanical Gardens. We dive into the specific event, the mapping and planning that goes into a sound garden installation and the specific composition chosen (and how it is chosen) for this site specific event. This is yet another fine example of how sound and music can be interwoven with nature elegantly and with intention to help foster a new sense of community.
