The Fire and Music Project

2023-2024

Our relationship with fire urgently needs healing.  Traditional indigenous land management in California centered around the intentional use of fire, but over a century of colonization and agency-led fire suppression has left our landscapes neglected and more vulnerable to catastrophic wildfire and climate change.  In the face of this trauma many people don’t understand that change is possible or what could be done.

We hear that our landscapes used to be fire-adapted, that we need to become fire-resilient.  There are many, many things to learn here, and we can identify physical changes that need to happen, but what is key is that we need to imagine something we’ve never seen before, something we don’t know is possible.  To heal our relationship with fire we need to change how we *feel* about fire, and that process is more emotional and sensory than intellectual.  Artists and culture-bearers are our best ambassadors for this type of work.  This project is about healing and reciprocity, yet we cannot foster healing and practice reciprocity with our communities and landscapes if we do not heal ourselves.  Therefore we will invest first in our artists and their process rather than solely their product.  Bringing them into a deeper ecological understanding through paid trainings, education, and active participation in fire on the land empowers them to carry important messages through their storytelling.  

In partnership with the Fire Management Program at the Watershed Research and Training Center and the Trinity Alps Chamber Music Festival, the Fire and Music Project will guide a group of artists through a curriculum that examines indigenous context, fire ecology, and fire suppression history, and includes mentored site tours, prescribed fire training events, and participation in prescribed burns.  The cohort will work together as an artistic group to develop a concert program that shares their experience in fire-affected communities of Northern California. Audience curriculum will combine with music, video art, and poetry to create an immersive concert experience that inspires introspection, perspective shift, and healing.

Project Objectives

  • Create a curriculum for culture change that is relevant beyond the arts

  • Transform artists into fire practitioners

    • Provide FFT2 certification and support participation in a variety of burns (TREX, PBA, agency-led, and cultural)

    • Share context and resources on the history of fire suppression and colonialism

    • Increase respect and awareness of traditional ecological knowledge and cultural burning practices

    • Host fire ecology field studies that allow artists to understand and experience different states of ecosystem health and fire adaptation

  • Model artist compensation reform - invest in artists’ learning and growth as much as tangible performance outcomes.

  • Commission new compositions that are relevant to current issues

  • Create a concert experience that promotes learning and healing through audience participation.

  • Contribute to the societal work of decolonization