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Duluth Harbor Serenade

from Ghostly Psalms by Philip Blackburn

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about

Duluth, Minnesota, on the Lake Superior shore, and just across the bridge from Superior, Wisconsin, was a major international shipping hub (second only to New York a hundred years ago). Although some of that industry has dried up, much still remains, and the urban-maritime soundmarks are still part of everyday life there: the alarm bell of the aerial lift bridge that raises to allow ships to pass beneath, and lowers to allow cars to drive across; the ships’ salutes (long-short-short) that thank the operator; the steam train whistle of the Empire Builder from the nearby Lake Superior Railroad Museum; the Japanese Peace Bell at Enger Tower; the Christ Lutheran Church Carillon (that curiously plays a selection including The Ash Grove and the Old Hundredth); and the assorted buoys, school clock chimes, and truck brakes as they descend the steep hills. The place resounds with messages and signals, communication codes, and noises with meaning.

On Labor Day Weekend, 2011, during DS Pride celebrations at Bayfront Festival Park, operators of any of these sounds within earshot were given permission to go crazy at 3pm for eight minutes while a flash-mob of community musicians was recruited to move through the area of 5,000 milling people, playing complementary phrases, and distilling the soundscape into musically concentrated form. The resulting soundscape composition served to remind locals of the sonic signatures they tune out every day, and visitors of the unique acoustic ecology of the area.

Music (and language) evolved outdoors in harmony with the environment. The Serenade is a pre-Post-Industrial celebration of that fact and a clarion call for celebrating an audible sense of place. The proximity and direction of the sounds are as significant as the sounds themselves; the way they reflect from the hills or are carried over open water depending on the wind direction.

Live performers included: Elias Mokole, Justin Rubin, Waabi Furo, Ben Tryton, Jason Ratajek, Isaac Enyard, William Chen, Ryan Kaiser, Justin Leroux, Shannon Midbrod, Philip Blackburn, Preston Wright, Florence Wright, Julie Conroy, John Conroy. Instruments included a chain saw duet, trombones, French horn, balloon bassoons, semi-submerged chimes, peripatetic tam-tam, oil-drum gongs, and Tibetan horn.

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from Ghostly Psalms, released March 27, 2021
Dozens of Citizens of Duluth, Minnesota

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Philip Blackburn Saint Paul, Minnesota

Philip Blackburn was born in Cambridge, England, and studied music there and at the University of Iowa with Kenneth Gaburo. He is a public artist specializing in sound — a composer/environmental sound-artist. Blackburn’s works have been heard in ships’ harbors, state fairs, forests, and coming out of storm sewers, as well as in galleries, parking lots, and on concert stages.

philipblackburn.com ... more

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