Join us for an evening at the intersection of music, ecology and community. The VCU Rice Rivers Center presents the East Coast Premiere of En Masse, a new work by artist/composer and VCUarts Kinetic Imaging adjunct faculty Sara Bouchard. En Masse is a composition for choir and drums which gives voice to the carbon cycle, navigates the threads of interconnection among individuals in an ecosystem and promotes a culture of care amidst the climate crisis.

En Masse was developed in collaboration with ecologist Dr. Chris Gough, Executive Director of the Rice Rivers Center and Professor in the VCU School of Life Sciences and Sustainability. Over the course of an 18-month residency, the artist became immersed in Gough Lab research on carbon flux–-the biosphere’s “inhalation” and “exhalation” of carbon dioxide. Inspired by the teachings of the more-than-human world, En Masse bridges scientific concepts with themes of ritual and imagination and embraces the experimental, incorporating field recordings, crowd-sourced text and scientific data into the score. Read more about the piece in a recent VCU News article.

The performance features renowned Richmond-based jazz drummer Scott Clark alongside the 12-person ensemble The En Masse Singers conducted by Kristen Melzer, bringing together local professional singers, members of the Richmond Symphony Chorus and students and alumni of VCUarts Department of Music. The evening begins with a conversation on interdisciplinary art-science research and collaboration moderated by Hope Ginsburg, artist and chair of VCUarts Kinetic Imaging, with composer Sara Bouchard, collaborator Chris Gough and post-doctoral Gough Lab scholar Lisa Haber. This is an hourlong event with no intermission.

En Masse was created in partnership with the fluxART residency directed by Maoya Bassiouni with ecosystem data courtesy the University of Michigan Biological Station. The project was supported by FLUXNET and the NSF (AccelNet Award No. 2113978) with additional support by VCU Rice Rivers Center, VCU College of Humanities and Sciences, VCUarts and Longwood University’s Baliles Center for Environmental Education.

Sara Bouchard is an artist and composer who uses sound, installation and performance to interweave song and the landscape. She received her MFA from VCUarts Kinetic Imaging in 2019 and her BA from Yale University in 2003. She has exhibited and performed internationally, including at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum (CT), The Center for Book Arts (NYC) and ERES Foundation (Munich, Germany). She currently teaches at VCUarts.