New Orleans Airlift is pleased to announce a new, ambitious endeavor to build a permanent home for their collaborative Music Box installation —The Music Box Village. Each Music Box house is a one-of-a-kind, interactive musical instrument disguised as a whimsical house, allowing visitors to explore, play, and create sound. Originally conceived by artists Delaney Martin, Taylor Shepherd, Callie Curry (SWOON) and Jay Pennington, and built in collaboration with dozens more local and international artists to date, each house is outfitted with hand-made pulleys, levers and other interventions, which are activated by guest musicians and visitors. The nonprofit organization recently acquired a 55,000 square foot forest with an adjoining metal fabrication warehouse in the Bywater, and plans to hold a grand opening of the new cultural destination in October 2016.
Since its creation in 2011, in part as a response to destruction and decay after Hurricane Katrina, Airlift’s flagship project The Music Box has drawn tens of thousands of people to experience a unique mix of ambitious sound art, memorable performances by local and world-renowned musicians, and one-of-a-kind musical architecture. Performance highlights include Thurston Moore, Wilco, Solange Knowles, Preservation Hall, Andrew W K, Mannie Fresh, Lost Bayou Ramblers, and Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes, just to name a few.
This summer, musical houses from several nomadic iterations including New Orleans City Park, and houses built in Georgia Tech, Tampa Bay and Shreveport, along with some other surprises, will be installed for the grand opening. In the 2016–2017 season, Airlift will present an exciting lineup of local and international performers as well as new collaborative musical houses, including a Mardi Gras Indian house with Big Chief Darryl Montana of the Yellow Pocahontas.
New Orleans Airlift is known for organizing large-scale collaborative art and performance works, crossing cultures and expanding upon tradition. For the first time, the organization will offer a membership program to support their organization, in addition to tax-deductible giving, partnerships, volunteering and more.
To celebrate this announcement and invite the public to get involved, the organization is running a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter to support the major build out and site improvements.
Musically Amusing 