DAWN
Dawn at the Tank is at 5:13am, first light on the Solstice on Sunday June 21, the start of the year’s longest day in the northern hemisphere. The sunrise itself is at 5:46am. For dawn, we have a selection of beautiful awakening sounds, with notes below for each track.
Ron Miles: Cornet Tanksong 1
Among the most talented improvisers and composers of his generation, cornetist Ron Miles brought his artistry to 2018 Solstice Festival at the Tank. Ron has a long history with the Tank. As a Colorado musician, he first came to Rangely more than twenty years ago, and in this concert shows his amazing sensitivity to the resonance of the Tank. If you love this music as much as we do, you’ll want to check out Ron’s deep and noble 2017 album, I AM A MAN.
Roomful of Teeth: Just Constellations by Michael Harrison
After Bach, musicians adopted the compromise system of equal temperament, in which all intervals are mildly dissonant, but compatible across keys. Michael Harrison is one of the leading composers in America who uses just intonation, an earlier tuning system that preserves the pure harmonies of perfect intervals. The Tank’s reverberations are perfect for those earlier, purer harmonies. Harrison’s work Just Constellations was the centerpiece of the 2017 Solstice performance by the astonishing and GRAMMY-winning vocal ensemble “Roomful of Teeth.” Brad Wells conducts Cameron Beauchamp, Dashon Burton, Martha Cluver, Eric Dudley, Estelí Gomez, Avery Griffin, Caroline Shaw, and Virginia Warnken Kelsey.
Elaine diFalco: Green Boat
The playing of accordionist and vocalist Elaine diFalco has been a notable feature of avant-prog collaborations from the Pacific Northwest to Europe, as she has worked with Caveman Shoestore, 3 Mice, Combat Astronomy and Thinking Plague, among other groups. Elaine helped the Tank’s early days in every way possible, from digging the trenches for conduit between the control room and the Tank to running Deep Listening workshops for Rangely residents. Inspired by the work of Pauline Oliveros, this piece is some of the special music Elaine composed for Solstice in the Tank, which became the principal part of the thesis for her Masters in Music at the University of North Texas. For Green Boat, she takes off on a vocal and accordion improvisation, and towards the end, gives a nod to Bruce Odland, who joins in.
Greg Heimbecker: Saxophone Tanksong
Greg Heimbecker is the Chief Recording Engineer in the School of Music at the University of Northern Colorado. Greg is also a Tank aficionado, having engineered sessions by many Tank artists, and having played and performed in the Tank himself. Here is his 2016 piece for saxophone in the Tank.
Colorado Children’s Chorale: All This Joy by John Denver
Under the leadership of Artistic Director Emily Crile and Executive Director Meg Steitz, the Colorado Children’s Chorale trains 400 members each year, children between the ages of 7 and 14 from all ethnicities and socio-economic backgrounds and from more than 180 schools in the Denver metro area and beyond. Since its founding in 1974, the Chorale has brought its artistry and charm to audiences throughout the world, singing a diverse repertoire ranging from fully-staged opera and musical theater to standard choral compositions in classical, folk and popular traditions. The Colorado Children’s Chorale came to the Tank in April, 2018, to record and to perform a concert at Rangely High School. Get out your hankies, dears, this is a tearjerker.
To see and hear all all our sonic selections for Solstice,
Dawn, Noon and Sunset,
click here.
The 2020 Solstice Festival at the Tank
is wholly sponsored by
Colorado Creative Industries
