In Tokyo, the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service field office heard about it and asked for details. Word spread and soon the New York Times ran a story on it, Paul Harvey talked about it on News and Comment, and it hit the Canadian airwaves.
USDA’s Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education stepped up with a $104,500 grant to fund it and Westwater, an artist known for setting pictures to a symphony orchestra, came on board. “In today’s society, the more we get together and try to understand each other, the better,” he said.ĮVEN from the beginning, the project proved to be a major production. Only recently did Deitrick realize a number of his season ticket holders are actually farmers.īut they are still mostly separate communities, he said, and it’s exciting to bring them together. PAIRING agriculture and the arts isn’t that far-fetched, said the symphony’s executive director David Deitrick.īoth livelihoods are all-consuming, he said that dedication is the same, whether it’s to the land or the concert hall. You get used to the view outside the back door and inside the barn and you forget it’s beautiful, Hall said. He’s never looked at barns in the same way since. Hall grew up on a farm and was even an extension agent for a while, but he still wondered why the photographer he was riding with wanted to take a picture of a plain, white barn.īut then the photographer showed him “its glow” – the way the stark barn reflected the color of the sky. Not only will it show nonfarmers the beauty in agriculture, but it will also remind farmers of what’s in their backyards. So why not use the expressive and emotional power of music and photographs, he asks. “Every time you try to do that, the words get in the way,” he said. THE hardest thing is explaining farming to nonfarmers, said Ohio State’s Denny Hall, project director. One piece, called Symphony to the Prairie Farm, will even use a moldboard plow, a disc blade and buffalo bones for percussion. The result was almost 4,000 pictures that photochoreographer James Westwater sorted and set to music. Area farmers snapped their own shots and sent them by the hundreds. Photographers, reporters and Farm Bureau members volunteered and took thousands of pictures. There have been countless meetings, focus groups and workshops. THE project, now called Growing Together: Agriculture and the Arts, hasn’t been an easy, quick or ordinary undertaking. “I easily see the fusion,” Leonhard said.
#ILLUMINATE THE FARM MOVIE#
Above them, three movie screens will unveil an intimate glimpse of the county’s agriculture – the hogs fighting for the trough, the combines churning through the corn, the farmers’ weathered faces laughing, the kids showing lambs at the county fair, the fields coated in snow, the cats lapping leftover milk, the late nights working in the shadow of a tractor’s headlights.įFA’ers and 4-H’ers and grandpas and the pet dog will be emblazoned across the tractor-trailer-sized panoramic screens, while the orchestra plays below.Īnd there will be a photograph of Leonhard’s three children there, too – playing their string instruments, in the middle of their cornfield. 19 and 20, the symphony orchestra in Springfield, Ohio, in tuxes and under dim lights, will play music about prairie farms and plows and loving the land. The idea came from Ohio State University, and since then farmers and musicians have planned a performance unlike anything ever done before in Ohio. She saw the farmers working the fields and watched the corn pushing through the ground, while listening to the strains of the violin and cello and oboe.īut it wasn’t until a couple years ago that someone other than Leonhard thought to weave the dusty, gritty farming life into the melodic, polished symphony world. Click here and you can save $10 to $55 (27% to 43% discount) on each ticket.LONG before “the big project” got started in Clark County, classical music filled Linda Leonhard’s car as she drove through the countryside. CouponĪre you looking for a way to save money on Illuminate The Farm. It begins on November 25, 2021, and runs through January 9, 2022. Illuminate The Farm will run on Thursday to Sunday from 4:30 pm to 9:30 pm. Illuminate The Farm has been featured in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Daily News, AM New York, Staten Island Advance, Time Out New York, Thrillist, Jersey’s Best, Gothamist and Spectrum News NY. Since this is an outdoor event, bringing a warm coat or jacket would be a good idea. Take it home with you as a souvenir and then wait for your wish to come true. You can decorate your lantern at the Art Table. New this year is your chance to purchase a wish lantern from the field of lights for $5. Soft drinks, coffee, hot chocolate and other beverages are also available for purchase. You can enjoy everything from ramen noodles to dumplings and so much more. There will be a Food Court where you can purchase food from Asian inspired food vendors.
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