Laura B. DeLind is an anthropologist at Michigan State University. She teaches and writes (popular essays as well as academic papers) about the contemporary agrifood system and its social, economic, and environmental costs. She is an advocate of more placed-based living and more democratized systems of food production, distribution, and consumption. Laura was a founding board member of the Michigan Organic Food and Farm Alliance (MOFFA) and received their "volunteer service award" in 2003. In 1996, she established Growing In Place Community Farm, a working-member CSA in Mason, Michigan. Currently, she is a board member of the Michigan Farmers Union Foundation and advises on the administration of their revolving loan program for low-income farmers. She is also the editor of the international journal, Agriculture and Human Values.
Late last year, my friend Joe asked me if I would like to attend a symphony in a cow barn. The performance would take place on an eighty acre, privately owned, organic farm in Ontario, Canada. It would not be a hoe down or a square dance. Rather, it would be a symphony in the most classical sense of the term -- a full orchestra, playing Schubert and Prokoviev in a working barn.
Despite its "edgy" nature, the program was not meant to be a farce for the culturally jaded or a thrill for the chronically bored. It was neither a trick nor a marketing ploy. It was to be taken at face value. And, according to Joe, it was a toss up as to who would enjoy the music more, the cows or the people.
I was intrigued. I was drawn in by the apparent irony of it all, by the discordant nature of the activity and the context, and also by a provocative set of bedfellows -- art and agriculture, Beethoven and bovines, culture and compost. But, as I wait for the next performance scheduled for late spring, my curiosity has given way to some serious contemplation. I have begun to ask myself questions. Why would anyone want to hold (or attend) a symphony in a cow barn? What sense does it really make? What could possibly be its purpose? I've given this some thought and I think I may have a few answers.
We, North Americans, love the bucolic. We are suckers for "old MacDonald" and things "down on the farm." But we also find such encounters parochial, mundane and inconvenient. We spend millions of dollars separating ambience from reality and ardor from odor. We buy and sell the first and disappear the second. "Country" has become a fashion statement, a pattern we can stencil on our walls, or something we can display on our shelves. Our meat and our milk come in hermetically sealed packages, their origin unknowable and unrecognizable. Pungent smells, warm bodies, wet intimacies are not part of the sanitized experience. But, they are most certainly a part of life.
A barn can provide a space, both literally and figuratively, within which to rethink the artificial divide we humans maintain between the common and the heroic and, ultimately, between an abstracted and a grounded sense of ourselves. A barn, a working barn, especially a wooden, working barn, full of sweet smelling straw, cob webs, and healthy, pasture-fed animals is one of the hallmarks of a humanly-scaled and organic farming system. Here, it is hard to know just where the pasture stops and the cow begins, where the cow stops and the farmer begins, where the farmer stops and the barn begins. There is little separation between the work and the worker, the place and the purpose; they are of a piece.
Like Sisyphus condemned to push his boulder up a hill each day, we humans lead lives that are simultaneously tedious and heroic -- and we would do well not to separate the two. In fact, they cannot be separated without causing violence, something that happens each time we cleverly seek to short circuit the system. The miraculous green revolution displaced millions of small subsistence farmers, DDT destroyed millions of song birds, Bt. corn threatened millions of monarch butterflies, and the list goes on. Without the plodding, the heroic is impossible and without the heroic, the incremental is unthinkable. A barn, a working barn, a wooden, working barn, then, can easily accommodate both of these dimensions. It is a sensual space and quite fit for human occupancy, especially when part of a regenerative system. It is a space that can heighten our awareness of ourselves as living creatures, not just our greatness, but also our smallness, our magnificence as well as our ignorance. A barn seems a perfect context within which to reunite the sensual with the spiritual, the built with the natural, the humble with the profound. Here in this non-virtual space a farmer's labor keeps company with a musician's. They too are of a piece.
And this brings up a second point. It seems to me, that a symphony in a cow barn also challenges popular notions of art and agriculture as things apart -- that as long as the porterhouse steaks (or ground beef) keep coming, the toilets keep flushing, and the sewer drains keep working, we are free to attend to a higher order of cultural expression. This is an arrogance we can't afford. We only have to look at the depletion of our aquifers, the pollution of our fresh water, and the collapse of our immune systems, to realize that our physical (and mental) separation from the natural world has come around to lay us low. There is an African proverb that recognizes, "Even the eagle must come down to the earth to eat."
And here in a barn, a working barn, a wooden working barn we can make a connection between farming, art and life. People who live (or remember living) close to the land, have stories that explain their relationship to the environment and each other. For many, these stories, brought forth and reworked generation after generation, are embedded in the landscape. A tree, a rocky outcropping, a bend in the river, an old foundation are the sites of shared understandings and place-based wisdom. They are the "stuff" of a place -- its history, culture, and ecology -- and of the people who dwell there.
According to Indian activist and conservationist Dennis Martinez, "The elders say that if you don't take care of the plants and talk to them and relate to them, they get lonely and go away" (1996:50). When this happens, the soils change, the landscape changes, and lives and people no longer belong. Similarly, as August explained to Lily in "The Secret Life of Bees," "Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can't remember who we are or why we're here" (Kidd 2003:107).
This forgetting, of course, is what is happening to many, if not most, of us. Few of us know how to talk to plants or which ones we need to talk to. In fact, most of us would consider this a ridiculous exercise. We have spun free of our stories, our languages, and our living contexts. We can sit in our kitchens and visit the Louvre and the rainforest almost simultaneously and we can do this without feeling the experience or committing ourselves to any one of these places. (If this continues, where will our future art work and aesthetics come from? And, more important still, who will be affected by them?) As travelers along the virtual and apparently infinite information highway, we absorb too many facts and too few organizing principles. Not knowing (or caring) where we are in any deep abiding way, means not knowing how to survive there. We hardly remember the last passenger pigeon or the last milkman (McCurtis, Jr. 2003). Likewise, we have lost track of our places as real biological, geographical, and historical sites that nourish and shape our bodies as well as our personal and collective identities. This "extinction of experience," Pyle notes, is self perpetuating. It "leads to alienation, apathy, and further extinction -- a particularly vicious cycle of disaffection and loss" (2003:71).
A symphony in a cow barn cannot fix all this. However, it can remind us that art, like experience, however universal or exalted, must be grounded. Like the eagle, it must touch the earth if it is to soar. Contrariwise, such a well-placed symphony is an invitation to enlarge our sense of agriculture as well as our own organic nature. Both can be convivial and accessible. Once returned to our barns and our bodies, we can embrace the stories, songs, dances, the myriad of expressive forms that define us as a people in place. This enlargement is really a deepening as well as a widening of our individual and collective selves. We are being offered the opportunity to re-situate ourselves, to engage sensually, emotionally, artistically and practically with the realities (humbling and heroic) of our daily lives. We are being nudged, ever so gently, into a civic and cultural consciousness. At the same time, agriculture is being readmitted into the ranks of a "great good place" (Oldenburg:1989).
Relationships of this sort will require time -- generations -- to develop (or redevelop). They will also require personal sacrifice and common cause. But then, so too does a symphony orchestra. Here, musicians retell a "story" handed down to them over time. Individual instruments variously give voice to sounds and silences according to mutually understood rhythms and traditions. Together, they weave a narrative that is far greater, more satisfying, and more enduring than any single one of them. It is an apt analogy for those of us who would reclaim a sustainable agriculture and our many cultures of place. We'll need more musical barns, more dancing farmers, and far more talking plants and animals to guide us along the way.
This essay was written months before I actually attended a symphony in a cow barn. But, on July 30, I traveled to Ontario to Glencolton Farm for what would be the last concert of the season. The program was performed by a string quartet made up of young, professional musicians. They played pieces by Haydn, Cherney, Beethoven, and Gershwin for almost three hours on a simple stage on the second floor of a huge, working barn. Bare wooden rafters overhead and sheets of unfinished plywood underneath defined the concert hall. It was a vast space with no pretence and some 200 people sat on folding chairs amid the bird droppings on the floor and the faint, earthy smell of manure and hay in the air.
The experience itself, its beauty and intensity, was just as I had imagined it. Well, perhaps not entirely as I had imagined it. I did not expect to hear the excited chirping of dozens of invisible birds, their voices floating above human conversation, punctuating Haydn's symphony, and then disappearing quite mysteriously as Cherney's tribute to his father got underway. I did not expect to hear the soft, low bellow of a young calf newly separated from its mother or see it through the open barn door in a nearby pasture. (Was it just coincidence that the bellow came during the third movement of the Beethoven quartet as he realizes he will be deaf, alone and isolated, for the rest of his life?) Neither did I expect to hear the rain that fell for almost an hour, at first slowly, languidly, and then with persuasion, but always with rounded edges. Nor did I expect to see, in the quiet before the concert began, a single, white feather float down from the rafters barely touching the shoulder of the cellist whose hair matched the deep, red bronze of her instrument.
These were all spontaneous happenings. They enriched the music; they expanded sensual awareness. While none of them could have been predicted, each of them was clearly welcomed. This, of course, is the grace and the power of a working barn, a wooden working barn. It is a permeable space. It can let the inside out and the outside in. Here, the heroic flowed into the mundane and both were inspirational and humbling. It was a grand performance. But then, as I listened (and thought, and touched and smelled), I found that I was in the midst of something even grander. Here, inextricably bound together, were the shared talents of remarkable individuals, a community of active interest, and a universe of organic possibility.
Nancy Wood of Kincardine, Ontario writes: "In the past six years, I have started to unearth just a few of the many summertime entertainment treasures in southwestern Ontario. During this time of delightful discoveries, I have been vaguely aware of something that sounded weird but intriguing - Symphony in the Barn."
This was the summer to find out more. In June, I worried when the Symphony in the Barn website was still "under construction" and the following bittersweet note was the response to my inquiry:
"Further to your request for information, we have recently had to make the very difficult decision to hold only one concert this summer, "A Celebration of Symphony in the Barn Spirit". Admission is free and donations are most welcome (suggested donation $10).
On behalf of the Artistic Director, Michael Schmidt, co-Directors Emmanuel Vukovich and David Molina, and those who continue to preserve and nurture the magic that is Symphony in the Barn, I thank you for your interest and support. Because the July 30th concert is our way of thanking all of you, we very much hope to see you there!"
I was more determined than ever to find out about this magic. By fluke, the July edition of Mosaic, the monthly which highlights artistic and cultural events in the Grey-Bruce environs, featured a cleverly crafted interview of Michael Schmidt, founder of Symphony in the Barn, being interviewed by none other than himself! As soon as I read Michael interviewing Michael, I was hooked.
Fast forward to the evening of July 30th, to a working farm on a concession road beyond the town of Durham, Ontario. An official looking green and white county road sign, "Symphony in the Barn", made me wonder if this was going to be the Ontario version of Tanglewood. That was the last sign for a long way and finally, a few concert-goers were walking along the country road, towards a laneway with a hand written sign - Box Office.
A lovely young Danish man directed us to the barn side parking. His English was limited, but we were charmed by his enthusiasm, as he told us to "be close" in order to make room for all the cars. Jumping out of our cars, memories of manure wafted throughout the air. Cows mooed. A border collie circled around the guests, wondering whether to herd us. The scene was peaceful. An eclectic mix of people was milling about the rambling farm. There was definitely a buzz of excitement in the crowd and great anticipation for first timers.
Making a pre-performance stop at the restrooms (read outhouse) before climbing the steps to the barn, excitement was still building. What could this really be about? The various greeters were enthusiastic and graciously accepted our donation as the price of admission.
Inside the massive barn, redolent with a mixture of farm life, among the rustic and rugged beams rose a stage. In a formidable contrast with the barn textures and grays was a massive white set with columns, something that must have been part of past productions. The stage, lined with mason jars filled with sand and simple white candles defined stage right and stage left with farm pails brimming with wildflowers. Cookies and squares baked by neighbours and fresh coffee were being served as close to 200 people settled in to enjoy a profound treat.
At about 8:20, Symphony in the Barn founder and visionary, Michael Schmidt welcomed everyone. Imagine any other symphony getting underway 20 minutes late? No one minded. The constant chirping of the barn birds, the occasional haunting moo of a cow or the wandering dog that had a need to mark his territory on the stage flowers, kept everyone fully entertained, while awaiting the real entertainers.
Enter, Michael Schmidt. After ten years of relentlessly pursuing his dream of combining Mozart with manure, Bach with bulls and Haydn with hens, Michael welcomed the record size crowd to what may have been the swan song for Symphony in the Barn, or with any luck may be the rebirth of Symphony in the Barn.
In short, from what I have read about and by Michael, every summer for ten years he and Dorthea Schmidt have been hosting international music students at their farm (often 40 or more). During the summer, these talented musicians work on the farm as apprentice farmers and in turn make summer music - a.k.a. Symphony in the Barn.
There were no programs that night. Maybe in ten years there have never been programs. We did not know who these four young and talented musicians were or where they were from, but could they create!!! They made beautiful music together, two on violins, one on viola and one on bass. The chemistry and connection between them, both on a musical level and on a very human level translated into a delightfully playful symphony by Haydn. Without a program and with a mix of people, some well versed in classical music and others not, the end of the first movement was met with great applause. One of the musicians graciously indicated there were three more movements, but without coming right out and asking for people to hold the applause until the end, the clapping continued. Later in the evening, Michael Schmidt asked the audience to hold their applause. I wish he had explained why for the benefit of the neophytes.
The musicians were patient, unperturbed and seemingly amused by the birds who often tried to make more music than the stage performers, or by a lone bird feather slowly descending from the rafters to the strings of the bass. As they began to perform, their music filled the barn. At that moment, I realized, it did not matter if it was a barn, or Carnegie Hall. What did matter is that musicians of this calibre were taking their talents to the country in what was bound to be a summer highlight for everyone fortunate enough to attend.
I don't know all the ins and outs and politics of the past ten years of Symphony in the Barn. I am sure it has not been easy. But I do know it will be missed. As long as there are people like Michael pursuing a big dream, performers like the musicians who performed that evening and audiences who are thirsting for fine music and a memorable experience, there should always be a Symphony in the Barn. Three moos to that!
Postscript: I have since learned that we were entertained by the Lloyd Carr-Harris String Quartet: The evening's program featured selections from: Haydn; Canadian composer Cherney, Beethoven and some traditional Quebecois and jazz arrangements.
August 4, 2004
Nancy Wood
Lake Huron, Ontario
Tony Massett of Durham, Ontario writes: "As the curator of the Durham Art Gallery for the last three years and resident of Durham for 17 years, I have watched Symphony in the Barn grow from a fledgling grass-roots festival to a fully staffed organization presenting world class concerts in a real Barn. Symphony in the Barn is a great asset to this community as there is no other organization that presents such rich and unique programming. The Symphony and the Durham Art Gallery have collaborated on several different occasions, Symphony musicians playing chamber music at our gallery openings. I wholly support the Symphony and its efforts to bring great music to this rural community. It is a unique organization that enriches musical culture in this area."
Geoffrey Shea, West Grey Municipal Councillor writes: "I would like to express my support for Symphony in the Barn and all the wonderful work you do to enhance life in our community. As an elected municipal representative, I know that real change and real difference comes, not from government, but from heartfelt, grassroots initiative like yours. I believe that Symphony in the Barn is one of the greatest assets we have in our area in terms of culture, tourism and economic development. I have enjoyed the many performances I have attended in the past and look forward to your upcoming programs."
Thomas Yaccato of the Thomas Yaccato Group and Symphony in the Barn's current Board of Director's President: "In 2002, I met a farmer, Michael Schmidt, at the Toronto Waldorf School. Every week, Farmer Schmidt would bring a big blue bus full of delicious organic food from his farm to be sold at market. Soon thereafter, I received an invitation to a performance of Orpheus and Eurydice, the Gluck opera that Michael was fully staging and conducting. . . . I had no idea that Michael was a conductor and creator of Symphony in the Barn. I immediately purchased a ticket, and headed up to Durham, Ontario with my daughter Kate. . . . I drove onto a beautiful country driveway observing friendly visitors walking around the gardens, kids playing with newborn kittens, and the Symphony Barn in its majesty, decorated with flowers. The performance was as charming as the environment surrounding it, and thus my relationship to the Symphony began. . . . Symphony in the Barn is on its way to becoming a great Ontario cultural attraction . . . while giving its visitors and artists a transformative and whole cultural experience."