Thanks in Variations: Traveling Exhibit for Your Community

Thanks in Variations is an immersive, live musical experience (with no live performers) that is available for your community. Using Dr. Emily Isaacson’s Experiential Music Design, this interactive sound installation is created so people of all ages can gather, safely, to engage, reflect, and process the chaotic experiences of the past year. This self-directed, on-demand concert uses Echoes, an audio tour app that transforms everyday spaces into personalized audio-worlds by using GPS and geofence technologies.

Based on Johannes Ockeghem’s 15th-century work “Deo Gratias” (Give Thanks), Thanks in Variations was reimagined for a modern experience by contrasting natural versus created sound, individual versus communal voices, order versus disorder, and original text versus loving-kindness meditation. Featuring Maine professional and amateur singers, the installation consists of twenty-seven separately recorded voices strategically “staged” in geoshapes so that the sounds overlap, intensify, fade, and/or layer depending on the location. The audience explores this richly textured, interactive musical environment, engaging the varying acoustical spaces so they experience the breath, the human body, and ensemble music in a new way.

Cultivate gratitude in your community with Thanks in Variations.

Impact of Thanks in Variations

Build new audiences through experiences that connect with people currently untapped in the market: under 45s, families, those who attend other cultural events but not classical music.

Increase ticket sales by creating intergenerational experiences that not only accommodate life’s professional and personal demands but celebrate them.

Attract new donors by becoming the talk of the town and generating earned media.

Reenergize current sponsors by presenting meaningful, cutting-edge work that both benefits the local community and is part of a national movement.

Become a thought-leader in a national movement in the arts.

Exhibition Details

1. Content: Installation instruction, prepared signage, draft press releases, copy for grant applications, donor invitations, and activities for adults and children such as guided meditation scripts, listening scavenger hunts, and art projects.

2. Fee: Flexible and commensurate with the organization's budget.

3. Space Needs: Flexible and can be adapted but more than 2,000 sq ft in any dimension is ideal. Can be set up outdoors or indoors, in an empty venue space or intertwined amongst established architecture.

4. Technical Needs:

• Smartphone

• Echoes App

• Headphones

  Echoes creates a unique, branded app which listeners can download on their smartphones for free. As a result, audience members can experience Thanks in Variations at any time using the app and their headphones.

5. Length: 17-30 minutes