Our Past Projects are legion.
Here is a partial list.
!!! The Curious Case of the Clay Cryptogram
See this link to iBrattleboro for details http://www.ibrattleboro.com/article.php/20101218165746164
MAKE! TUNE! PLAY! The Levi Fuller A435 Extravaganza
Estey Organ Museum Hosts Simple Instrument Creation and Tuning in celebration of Brattleboro’s own Levi Fuller who was a force in music and in Brattleboro.
Listen to the Vermont Public Radio Story on the event here . . . http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/96007/perfect-pitch-estey-organ-museum/
LEVI FULLER 4345 EXTRAVAGANZA AND INSTRUMENT BUILDING WORKSHOP
Watch on YoutTube
On Saturday, August 6th at 2:30 p.m. the Estey Organ Museum hosted the first annual musical instrument-making workshop in celebration of Levi Fuller, vice-president of the Estey Organ Company and son-in-law of its founder Jacob Estey.
Participants experienced the remarkable story of the first International Pitch, standardized in 1891, and the Brattleboro pioneer who helped bring the world in tune shortly after he served as the 44th governor of Vermont.
The afternoon featured making simple instruments and tuning them to A435.
After tuning their instruments, people walked (via Washington Street) to Levi Fuller’s enormous obelisk at Morningside Cemetery to play them for the former Governor. We played the first note at exactly 4:35pm, and continued improvising for 4 minutes and 35 seconds in celebration of Levi Fuller’s contributions to Brattleboro, to Vermont, and to worldwide musicmaking.
Dennis Waring, Professor of Music and author of Manufacturing the Muse: Estey Organs and Consumer Culture in Victorian America, informed us of Fuller’s life and contributions.
Ned Phoenix, founder of the Estey Organ Museum, discussed “Why Tune?” He demonstrated tuning forks, and played a remarkable Estey organ with unique tuning commissioned about 1915 for the physics department of Smith College.
Prior to the establishment of International Pitch A435, instruments were tuned to local pitches, which often prevented playing them together,” said Phoenix. A standard pitch allowed musicians to play in tune together, which was important in orchestras and when playing in other locales and countries. International Pitch was eventually changed to today’s standardized pitch, A440.
The event was a collaborative production of the Estey Organ Museum and a group of fun-loving citizens who call themselves The University of Brattleboro.
Estey Organ Museum is located behind the slate-sided Estey buildings on Birge Street in Brattleboro. Find out more about the Estey Organ Museum at esteyorganmuseum.org.
For more information contact Ned Phoenix 802-365-7011, or email info@esteyorganmuseum.org.
.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/88361661@N00/5581003626/
! The Pumpkin Float.
November of 2011 will mark the 11th Annual Floating of the Pumpkins. We get together, carve jack o’ lanterns so that they will float downstream and then set them out on a river, and watch them turn and shine on their merry way to being carp food.
!! The Sevincer Animation Festival, in Brattleboro.
See http://vermontartsdirectory.org/directory/listing.php?id=01482 for details.
!!!! The 2004 Riff Raff Regatta in Brattleboro
We kept the Brattleboro Riff Raff Regatta alive in 2004.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28998624@N00/345434413/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Note the above photo, copyright 2000 Merritt Brown is
from the glory days of the regatta.
Our event in 2004 was fun, but the above picture really captures what the regatta was, and could be again.
See this link for details about the more modest 2004 event.
Donut Park
The town asked its citizens what we should name the new park. Many people had been calling the park, “Donut Park”, in “honor” of the Dunkin Donuts that used to be located there. This was made an official suggestion. This request was ignored, and named after a local citizen, Pliny Burrows, he deserved the honor. But some of us really were too enamored of the Donut Park idea, and we set about building a kiln, baking clay doughnuts and laughing a lot. We even glazed them and carved various ancient scripts in the sides of the clay. Thus was born The University of Brattleboro. We buried the doughnuts throughout the park before it was covered over, and our hope is that downtowns being what they are, clay doughnuts will continue to be dug up centuries from now, baffling and hopefully delighting future workers and residents of Brattleboro.