“A gentle cloth of chamber music is spread over archival material in this melancholic and tender publication... Enormously fascinating and authentic through its artistic and musical examination of the past. 9/10 stars.”
SHAWNEE, OHIO (2016/2021)
“5/5 STARS - 2019 UNDERGROUND ALBUM OF THE YEAR - Ohio composer and sound-artist paints his masterpiece.”
“[There is] a strong sense of engagement... in the ability to absorb oneself so deeply in the history of a place that the most trivial happenings, rather than the most dramatic, turn out to be the telling ones.”
“The more I feel unable to figure it out, the more I like the work... Harnetty’s created modern art out of regional history.”
“[Shawnee, Ohio] is an impressionistic tour de force through this region’s past and present... One comes away wanting all of history to be accompanied by a live score.”
“A great piece of work.”
“SHAWNEE, OHIO...is a lot at once: acoustic portrait, empathic narrative, and historical search for clues. It is music that opens a door into an unknown room. 5/6 stars.”
WATCH THE FULL-LENGTH VIDEO OF SHAWNEE, OHIO
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
Shawnee, Ohio is a series of audiovisual portraits of people from a small Appalachian mining town. It uses archival recordings, video, and images alongside newly composed music to critically explore issues of extraction, economy, and ecology in the region.
Shawnee’s history includes coal, gas, oil, and clay extraction, and the formation of early labor unions. The town’s downturn and partial restoration act as an ethos of the struggles and hopes of the larger region, now immersed in a controversial fracking boom. Shawnee, Ohio considers these histories, evokes place through sound, and listens to the present alongside traces of the past.
In their own voices, eleven local residents recount their lives, work, friendships, and deeds. They talk and sing of mining, disasters, underground fires, murders, social life, protest, and hope. They include women and men; they are black and white; and they span across generations and centuries.
Shawnee, Ohio was co-commissioned by the Wexner Center for the Arts at The Ohio State University, Duke Performances at Duke University, and the Contemporary Arts Center (Cincinnati). Shawnee, Ohio is a project of Creative Capital, and also received support from the Ohio Arts Council. It was first commissioned in 2016, and completed in 2021.
LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEOS
PORTRAITS
PART 1: TOWN AND PEOPLE
1. Jim : Remembers the people and buildings of Shawnee
2. Boy : Asks his grandmother about the "olden days"
3. Amanda : Sings a murder ballad from Gore, Ohio: "Terrill"
4. Lucy : Talks of playing music and social life
PART 2: MINING AND DISASTER
5. Judd : Recalls working as a miner and mine inspector
6. Sigmund : Describes the Millfield Mine explosion of 1930
7. Reuben : Sings of the New Straitsville Mine fires, 1884-present
8. Ina : Sings another murder ballad from Gore: "Pearl Bryan"
PART 3: PROTEST AND HOPE
9. Jack : Resists fracking in the Wayne National Forest, 2012
10. John : Listens to music and community in Rendville
11. Neva : Sings "My Station's Gonna Be Changed" in Murray City
PERFORMANCES
October 27-8, 2016 (3 performances) | Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio
October 29, 2016 | Tecumseh Theater, Shawnee, Ohio
October 31 - November 4, 2016 | National Performance Network Residency and Performance | Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
February 20, 2019 (solo) | Marshall University, West Virginia
March 20, 2018 | Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra's Liquid Music Series, Minnesota
March 30, 2018 | Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio
October 26-7, 2018 (2 performances) | Duke Performances, Durham, North Carolina
May 10, 2020 (solo) | Tecumseh Theater, Shawnee, Ohio
March, 2021 (premiere of newly complete work) | Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio
MUSIC SCORE, TRANSCRIPTION, AND WRITINGS
PUBLIC IMPACT
