Immerse yourself in the waters of Lake Michigan without ever getting wet!
Lakenotes: Seasons of Lake Michigan is an interdisciplinary concert experience that invites audiences to explore the beauty, power, and poetic essence of Lake Michigan through an evocative blend of music, poetry, photography, and videography.
This unique artistic journey is the result of a collaboration between three acclaimed artists, each bringing a distinct creative lens to one of the world's most awe-inspiring freshwater lakes. Poet Kathryn Haydon offers vivid and reflective lyricism that gives voice to the lake’s many moods, from the stillness of winter ice to the restless churn of autumn waves. Visual artist Lincoln Schatz, renowned for his immersive storytelling, captures the lake’s vast palette through sweeping videography and striking photography, revealing its ever-changing character across seasons and time of day.
At the core of Lakenotes is a powerful new commissioned work by award-winning Chicago composer Stacy Garrop. This contemporary chamber piece conjures the natural rhythms and hidden depths of Lake Michigan through a richly textured soundscape.
Blending the auditory and the visual, the emotional and the ecological, Lakenotes offers more than a performance—it is an invitation to reflect, to connect, and to experience Lake Michigan not just as a place, but as a living, breathing presence. Whether you are a lifelong resident of the Great Lakes region or encountering Lake Michigan for the first time, Lakenotes: Seasons of Lake Michigan promises a moving tribute to the lake’s enduring mystery and majesty.
-
Stacy Garrop: Piece Title TBD (2026)
Commissioned by Black Moon Trio & The Ravinia Festival
Yeeun Sim: Orbit of Breeze (2024)
Composed for Black Moon Trio
Mason Bates: Mainframe Tropics (2011)
Jiří Pazour: Probuzení Perel (Awakening of Pearls) (2008)
Carson Cooman: Horn Trio (2004)
-
Stacy Garrop’s music is centered on dramatic and lyrical storytelling. The sharing of stories is a defining element of our humanity; we strive to share with others the experiences and concepts that we find compelling. She shares stories by taking audiences on sonic journeys – some simple and beautiful, while others are complicated and dark – depending on the needs and dramatic shape of the story.
-
Lincoln Schatz is a contemporary artist and environmentalist living in Chicago, Illinois. He is best known for his contemporary art practice that is focused on portraits of places, people and processes over time in photography, video and new media. He has created large scale video and sculptural installations that feature new media technologies, custom built software that uses generative compositional strategies to build artworks that study a subject over an extended period of time in order to create a works that are at once driven by chance and memory.
-
Kathryn P. Haydon is an award-winning poet and the current poet-in-residence at Brushwood Center at Ryerson Woods. Her haiku and poetry have been published internationally in leading journals such as The Heron’s Nest, humana obscura, Wales Haiku Journal, Presence, and many others. Kathryn’s most recent poetry collection, Unsalted Blue Sunrise, was written on the bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan over the course of 365 daily walks to the shore.