Katie
Down
Sound Stories is a three-part/phase community experience that will take place in Marlboro, NY (population ~3,000) blending original music, oral histories, a sound-walk, and a public performance/workshop. Each phase invites a diverse cross section of Marlboro’s community residents to creatively engage with the town’s past, present, and future through accessible, creative participation.
The project will take place in 3 phases:
Phase One: Oral Histories
With support from Meet Me In Marlboro (a non-profit organization supporting local agriculture, artisans, and businesses), the Marlboro Free Library, The Falcon (Marlboro’s dynamic performance venue), and Fermata café, I will conduct 25–40 interviews with community members representing diverse cultures, ages, ethnicities, and gender identities. Interviews will be audio-recorded with a past–present–future through-line and integrated into a sound collage and musical composition. Interviewees will be asked a series of six questions, including their name and age if they wish to share.
Phase Two: Soundwalk in town
Sound-walking is a practice of Walking Arts and an aspect of both Acoustic Ecology and Psychogeography respectively. Acoustic Ecology is the study of the perception and relationship to the sonic environment. Psychogeography is the study of emotion and embodied connection to place. Sound-walks and walking arts are collective expressive arts that invite participants to engage with the natural world through mindful walking, deeply listening, and quietly bringing attention to all sounds. Phase 2 of “Sound Stories” will take listeners on a total of 3 curated sound-walks along the Marlboro Nature Walk trail in October 2026. This relatively easy, 30-minute loop begins close to the center of town and guides the walker through woods, down to a creek, and loops back up to the beginning. “Sound Stories” will make this nature walk even more special through the addition of ‘secret’ sounds that will be invisibly implanted along the path.
Phase Three: Performance
During the last week of October, The Falcon will host a free, open-to-the-public concert by my band, the Spree Ensemble, comprised of local musicians and sound artists. This is no ordinary concert, but rather a setting that encourages informal interaction between artists and audience members, fostering shared cultural experience and civic connection. The music will be structured around shared responses to the interviews, stories, and gathered sounds. The concert will invite the audience to participate through playful group singing that reflects on Marlboro’s Past, Present, and Future through storytelling, poetry, and a shared community vision: a communal music-making to celebrate the project’s culmination.