Sow the Seeds at Brushwood Center

Black Moon Trio collaborates with Chicago-author, Michael Tyler, and  Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods to develop an experience for audiences  to actively address subjects of wellness and community through music,  poetry, and nature. Guided by Tyler’s Sow the Seeds: A Composition in  Verse, this program features musical works inspired by local green  spaces and encourages audience members to converse and reflect on the  ways they treat themselves and their neighbors. Each poem plows the  surface of daily living, to plant and nurture the meditations that yield  our understanding of life. ​ ​Also functioning as a journaling and community building workshop, Sow the Seeds offers  ample opportunities to serve Brushwood Center’s Veteran audiences at  the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Healthcare Center and promotes art  and nature as pathways to physical recovery and mental health care.  During a 4-week residency program, Veterans will use the themes of  wellness and healing through nature to compose original pieces of music  using graphic musical notation from art supplies from Brushwood’s Art  Supply Exchange (BASE) and subsequently performed by Black Moon Trio  musicians. These pieces of music, that at first glance appear to be  pieces of abstract art, will be displayed at Brushwood Center  accompanied by QR codes that will link to recordings of the works made  by Black Moon and allow the general public to listen to the pieces as  they were intended to be heard by the Veteran composers who wrote them.