My Name is Amelia Taylor. I am one of the founding members of ArcaSonica along with Alejandro Larumbe, a chamber collective in its 4th year that is committed to moving people to a deeper appreciation of cultural diversity through multi-sensorial music programs performing to audiences and communities who have few opportunities to live classical music.

ArcaSonica's 2019/20 season includes 3 concerts at the Ypsilanti Freighthouse presenting 3 cultures, (America, Mexico and New Zealand). These concerts present a unique approach to experience cultural diversity through music.

On April 24th 2019 ArcaSonica launched its first concert at the Ypsilanti Freighthouse. Our challenge was to enable the audience to imagine they were in New Zealand, hearing native bird calls, experience a typical Maori greeting, learn the basics of the Haka, and hear music of living NZ composers (female and male). They were also able to walk around the room looking at landscapes of NZ, the birds they were hearing and some Maori phrases that all kiwis use. The concert ended with NZ's national dish, the Pavlova.

The feedback from the audience exceeded our expectations. They can not wait for more.

We want to be able to create similar experiences in our next season.

Ypsilanti Freighthouse
Ypsilanti needs more live classical music. Depot town is a great place to be with lots of restaurants, bars, new cafes, live music (non-classical) and great historical venues like the Freighthouse. The only regular classical concerts are the youth orchestra and occasional concerts by the Eastern University. If you live in Ypsilanti you have to travel to Ann Arbor or Detroit for concerts. Ann Arbor is saturated with many different kinds of concerts, whereas the Ypsilanti community has the capacity to develop more concerts, and audience from Ann Arbor.

We are creating unique experiences to listen, and learn about new music from different cultures. This is why our project is awesome.