North Cascades Residency

In the summer of 2018, the American Wild Ensemble returned to North Cascades National Park Service Complex to help celebrate the park’s 50th anniversary. Our first encounter with the park was in 2016, when we performed at North Cascades in honor of the National Park Service centennial. We had an amazing time at North Cascades that summer and were delighted to return to take part in this milestone anniversary and celebration!

Over the course of our week at North Cascades, we performed evening concerts of new music inspired by our national parks, designed and led education programs blending music, movement, and nature, and engaged in daily back porch jams where visitors joined us in singing and playing a variety of beloved folk tunes.

We concluded our time at North Cascades with a very special event, a performance of Chris Chandler’s Audubon Sketches on the Trail of the Cedars. Visitors were invited to walk the loop and listen to the music as they traversed the trail. Chris’s work, an open-form piece that blended natural sounds and processes with improvisation, felt perfectly at home among the magnificent towering trees and provided a moving experience for all.

We are so grateful to Denise Shultz, Chief of Visitor Services, and her team for giving us such a warm and inviting welcome in the park. This project was made possible by generous support from Washington’s National Park Fund and New Music USA.

north cascades team

Emlyn Johnson, flute — Ellen Breakfield-Glick, clarinet — Nikki LaBonte, horn — Collen Bernstein, percussion

Molly Werts McDonald, violin — Molly Goldman, viola — Daniel Ketter, cello

Lynn Grossman, education — Andrea Donze, education

James Andrews, video