Tippet Rise Art Center Announces Highlights Of 2024 Season June 14 Through September 15

Tippet Rise Art Center, which celebrates the inextricable linkages between art, music, architecture, and nature on a 12,500-acre working ranch, announced today the highlights of its upcoming 2024 season.

The ninth concert season, which will run for five weeks from August 16 through September 15, will feature the opening of a new open-air performance space. The Geode has been designed by a team of specialist engineers at global sustainable development consultancy Arup, to create an enveloping sonic environment in the great outdoors. The music season will offer more than 15 performances of wide-ranging repertoire and new works. Highlights will include Arlen Hlusko performing the inaugural concert at the Geode; the return of the Wander series, which moves musicians and audience among different works of art; and Claire Chase and the string ensemble Owls performing Terry Riley's new work The Holy Liftoff Chorale, co-commissioned by Claire Chase/Density 2036, The Kitchen, Stanford Live, and Tippet Rise.

Complete program details will be announced in early 2024. Registration for the art center's randomized drawing for concert tickets will open on the Tippet Rise website in early spring 2024.

In addition to an inaugural concert by cellist Arlen Hlusko, the Geode's high amphitheater will be programmed with spontaneous pop-up concerts this summer of violin, woodwind, and chamber music with the resonance of an indoor hall set in a panorama of seven surrounding mountain ranges. Tippet Rise and Arup drew design inspiration from a photograph taken by Robert Doisneau of the cellist Maurice Baquet performing on a mountaintop in Chamonix, France. The Geode, like the chair and music stand in the picture, creates an important, yet harmonious juxtaposition between the musician and nature.

Measuring 18 feet tall at its highest point, the Geode will consist of four triangular structures or ‘harmonic polygons' crafted from weathering steel and clad in vertical grain Douglas Fir wood, which have been burned and brushed with a traditional Japanese Yakisugi technique to help scatter sound waves at a higher frequency. The Geode's sound-reflecting surfaces are large and close to the ground and will also provide musicians and audience members with protection from the elements.

Embodying Tippet Rise's commitment to sustainability and the reduction of its environmental impact on the land, the Geode was sited at a location that did not require new excavation or road construction. The design minimally disturbs the site to preserve the native grasses and rather than pouring a continuous foundation for each structure. Arup designed 26 individual micropiles—thin tubes inserted into the ground and filled with a small volume of cement—to ground the structure.

During the hiking, biking, and sculpture van tour season, which begins June 14, visitors will be able to visit two newly installed sculptures by contemporary artists Wendy Red Star and Richard Serra. Red Star's The Soil You See… (2023) was recently displayed on the National Mall as part of Monument Lab's exhibition Beyond Granite: Pulling Together, and now comes to permanently reside at Tippet Rise. Born in Billings, Montana and raised on the nearby Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation, Red Star's new work stands at eight-feet tall and features a large piece of glass depicting a red thumbprint. Inscribed in the ridges are the names of 50 Apsáalooke nation chiefs and tribal representatives who signed land treaties with the U.S. government between 1825 and 1880, oftentimes using their thumbprint or an X rather than their names. At Tippet Rise, which sits within the traditional sacred land of the Apsáalooke, The Soil You See… will be in significant dialogue with the land and will be one of the first works guests encounter as they approach the main Cottonwood Campus.

"I am truly honored to have The Soil You See… find its permanent home at Tippet Rise,” shared Wendy Red Star. “This sculpture holds a special place in my heart, as it pays tribute to the Apsáalooke chiefs who dedicated their lives to the preservation of their people and the Apsáalooke nation. Having this work at Tippet Rise is not only a beautiful addition, but also a meaningful recognition of their legacy. It serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of preserving and honoring our history and culture."

Richard Serra's work Crossroads II (1990), comes to the art center as a gift of Leonard I. Korman in memory of Jane F. Korman. This work consists of four solid, eight-inch-thick plates made of weatherproof steel, each 57 inches tall, with the two shorter plates measuring two feet, eight inches, and the longer plates measuring 20 feet. Arranged at 90-degree angles and separated by distances ranging from eight to 85 feet, visitors will be able to walk among the plates, which sit on a prow of volcanic rock overlooking the dramatic Murphy Canyon and its vertical grey and brown cliff walls.

In 2024, Tippet Rise will celebrate the returns of pianists Julien Brocal, Marc-André Hamelin, Anne-Marie McDermott, and Yevgeny Sudbin; cellists Christopher Costanza, Sterling Elliott, and Arlen Hlusko; and flutist Jessica Sindell. They will perform an eclectic selection of works spanning several genres and centuries, to the present day.

The ninth concert season features notable Tippet Rise debuts. The art center will welcome flutist and interdisciplinary artist Claire Chase and the quartet collective Owls to perform Terry Riley's new work The Holy Liftoff Chorale for flute, strings, and electronics—a co-commission of Claire Chase for Density 2036, The Kitchen, Stanford Live, and Tippet Rise. Cellist Camille Thomas will play a mixed program of works by Chopin and Franchomme with returning pianist Julien Brocal.

Tippet Rise will also welcome mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska and pianist Kunal Lahiry for a joint debut in the Olivier Music Barn. This season's Wander series concert will be played by flutist Jessica Sindell, oboist Tamer Edelbi, clarinetist Afendi Yusuf, bassoonist Jake Thonis, and horn player Nathaniel Silberschlag, moving among artworks on the art center's main campus.

Esteemed French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet will perform an all-Ravel program, and rising star pianist Evren Ozel, who recently received the Avery Fisher Career Grant, will perform with violinist Abigél Králik in her Tippet Rise debut and returning cellist Sterling Elliot. Also debuting this year are members of the regionally based Baroque Music Montana, known for their chamber music performances inspired by history.

All visitors to the art center are welcome to attend pre-concert talks held at the outdoor Tiara Acoustic Shell in advance of Friday evening performances, as well as pop-up concerts that take place throughout the season. Each summer, Tippet Rise also presents a small number of family concerts geared towards young children.

Outside of the concert season, Tippet Rise hosts residencies in which artists are invited to record music and create performance films. A self-described “hard-core fan” of Dmitri Shostakovich, pianist Boris Giltburg spent a week at Tippet Rise in August 2022 to record his own transcription of Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 3., which is currently available to listen to within Tippet Rise's Music Download Library. A performance film of Giltburg is also available to watch in the Tippet Rise Film Library and YouTube channel.

During the winter of 2023, Tippet Rise hosted a residency for the artist-led collective Decoda, in celebration of their 10th anniversary as an ensemble. Decoda recorded their debut album, Revelry, and a performance film in the Olivier Music Barn, both of which will be released in early 2024 and will also be available on Tippet Rise's Music Download Library and Film Library. Anchoring the album is composer Valerie Coleman's 2018 work Revelry, commissioned for the group under the auspices of Carnegie Hall's 125 Commissions Project. Featured musicians are flutist Catherine Gregory, clarinetist Moran Katz, bassoonist Brad Balliett, violinist Clara Lyon, violist Nathan Schram, cellist Sæunn Thorsteinsdóttir, and pianist David Kaplan.

Tippet Rise will reopen to the public on June 14 for hiking, biking, and sculpture van tours of its monumental outdoor sculptures on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Self-guided hiking and biking at the art center are free for everyone. Van tours are priced at $10; free to those under 21. Pre-registration, which is required of all guests, will open on the art center's website in spring 2024. For the latest information on ticketing, please sign up for the Tippet Rise e-newsletter.

Concerts will begin on August 16 and run through September 15 on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Concert tickets are priced at $10 and are free for those 21 and under. Pre-purchased tickets, which are required for concert admission, will be available through a randomized drawing; the drawing will open on the Tippet Rise website in spring 2024. For the latest information on ticketing, please sign up for the Tippet Rise e-newsletter.

The Tippet Rise website is a rich and growing multimedia resource, featuring, in addition to its Music Download Library of free DXD files, dozens of films created by Tippet Rise's in-house and guest filmmakers. These films include concert footage from past seasons as well as special projects such as Tippet Rise on Tour, and the poetry film series Above Strands of Earth, created in collaboration with Tippet Rise's sister organization – the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. A new installment of Relevance of Place, an online series of site-specific dialogues exploring the meaning of place, will be added to the website in early 2024, featuring conversations with artists Jeffrey Gibson, Heather Hart, and Ben Pease, and Tippet Rise Co-Directors Lindsey and Pete Hinmon.

Tippet Rise Art Center is located in Fishtail, Montana against the backdrop of the Beartooth Mountains, roughly midway between Billings and Bozeman and just north of Yellowstone National Park. Set on a 12,500-acre working sheep and cattle ranch, Tippet Rise presents performances by internationally acclaimed musicians during its annual summer concert season and through virtual performances and other online events. From June through September, visitors can experience large-scale outdoor sculptures installed throughout the landscape by some of the world's foremost artists and architects including Alexander Calder, Patrick Dougherty, Ensamble Studio, Francis Kéré, Alexander Liberman, Louise Nevelson, Wendy Red Star, Richard Serra, Mark di Suvero, Stephen Talasnik, Isabelle Johnson, Marie Watt, and Ai Weiwei. Tippet Rise is anchored in the belief that art, music, architecture, and nature are intrinsic to the human experience, each making the others more powerful.

 

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