Douglas R. Ewart Crepuscule in Guelph 2016, Douglas R. Ewart & Community Orchestra Inventions

Douglas R. Ewart (reeds), the former chair of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) was the 2015-2016 Improviser-In-Residence in Guelph and Waterloo. Ewart’s residency included instrument building workshops, musical improvisations with local artists, a performance at the 2015 Guelph Jazz Festival & Colloquium and culminated in his orchestrated, massive community improvisation Crepuscule 2016, in Guelph’s Arboretum. The Improviser-in-Residence program is a collaborative partnership between IICSI, the Laurier Centre for Music in the Community, and Musagetes.

Crepuscule 2016 poster

Douglas Ewart: Crepuscule (1993-2016/present)

Crepuscule builds connections across boundaries of culture, class, gender, and ethnicity. This long term project began in 1993 in Minneapolis, Minnesota as a commissioned work by the McKnight Foundation, called Wondrous Waters, based on a composition with an enormous group of people performing music, inspired by the sounds, acoustical properties, and possibilities that land and water provided. Mr. Ewart modified the idea from being just an orchestra with a relatively passive audience into an orchestra of community and activities, and an active audience, a microcosm of society where many disciplines could converge.

Crepuscule events usually take place near a body of water, trees, or botanical gardens as a means to draw energy from the setting itself. The circle is imagined as a source of endless nature and power and persons collaborating in Crepuscule events often join hands at some point as a demonstration of that power, unity, and community.

Ewart describes Crepuscule “as a space for all people to perform all kinds of creative art forms and disciplines.”

Crepuscule events include a broad combination of community groups and artists organized as “pods” for the event. Learn more about the Pods of Crepuscule 2016.

Read Ewart’s Why Crepuscule?