EOS Project: Many Hands

The EOS Project opens the new year on Sunday, January 5, with “Many Hands,” a concert exploring percussion-centric works. The 3 p.m. concert at the BMC will include percussion ensemble works, a marimba solo, a Brazilian Choro, and jazz tunes. Of the ten pieces, six were composed by women – a highly significant percentage in a field that has historically been dominated by men.

The concert will feature Stefan Amidon, Wes Brown, Wyatt Cudworth, Julian Gerstin, Cathy Martin, Haneef Nelson, Alexa Odoy, Steve Rice and Michael Zsoldos.

The EOS Project is a direct response to questions about social justice as it pertains to the world of classical music, and institutions such as the BMC. This ongoing concert series is envisioned as a collaborative effort of BMC Music School faculty and other local musicians to actively seek out and perform music by composers who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as composers who identify as anything other than cis male.

About the EOS Project
What do great composers look like? Where do they come from? How we answer these questions is the focus of the EOS (Educate • Open • Strengthen) Project. Created at the BMC in the spring of 2020, the Project’s mission is to open new doors and allow our community to explore what and who we’ve been missing—namely, composers who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color as well as those who identify as anything other than cis male.

The ability to write complex, evocative musical works belongs to no one race or gender, a fact that has long been obscured by the traditional canon. But there is an extensive list of gifted composers—from contemporaries of the acknowledged “great composers” to living, emerging artists today—who have created powerful works of depth and grace for as long as music has existed. EOS, under the direction of Heather Sommerlad, and with the participation of BMC faculty and area musicians, seeks out this unjustly neglected music to study and perform in a spirit of social justice and a desire to add to our understanding of great art.