CITY SONGS

In the weeks leading up to Big Ears 2022 and 2023, Aurora Nealand and Jebney Lewis spearheaded a project in Knoxville that incorporated original stories and compositions from local youth and matched them with festival musicians. Students from a creative writing class at Fulton High School, led by Christy Brown, wrote stories and poems about their favorite places in Knoxville. A Fulton High class of music production students, led by David Miller, scored these stories with beats and soundscapes. Nealand and Lewis then organized festival musicians to improvise and perform over these audio tracks at or near the location of the students’ favorite places. The final product is a story and sound map of Knoxville which you can explore below.

If you’re having trouble viewing the embedded story below, click here to open our story map in a new browser window.

This project was supported in part by a Presentation Grant from South Arts in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Tennessee Arts Commission.