Woods Hole Film Festival presents Cabin Music by James Carson

The Woods Hole Film Festival presents Cabin Music,  by James Carson, a special event screening and piano concert on Wednesday, March 19, at Cotuit Center for the Arts 4404 Falmouth Road, Cotuit, MA.

Mesmerizing pianist and filmmaker James Carson brings his internationally acclaimed Cabin Music experience to venues throughout the greater Boston area this March, including filmmaker screenings and intimate piano performances.

Hailed as “supremely immersive” by the American Society of Cinematographers and as a “lyrical, genre-defying feast for the senses” (DOC NYC), Cabin Music is both a standalone award-winning feature documentary film and a new form of hypnotically immersive concert experience known for sending audiences “to the stratosphere.” (Berkshire Fine Arts).

Carson’s film is acclaimed for bringing people across three continents and into a unique straw bale cabin he built in Northern Alberta to transform the ways we create and experience music. Yet the aim of his combined film and concert events is still deeper: to invite each audience member not just into Carson’s cabin, but into their own ‘inner cabin’—that place inside that no one knows about, where change is possible. This cumulative effect of experiencing “a cinematic wonder” (The Independent Critic) before immersing in Carson’s “trance-inducing, shimmering arpeggiated figures” (Feast of Music) transports audiences into “inner and outer states of being approaching bliss” (POV Magazine).

Carson, an Edmonton-born Canadian-American, is an alumnus of the New England Conservatory. Says Carson, “When I’m playing piano, nothing is happening. I’m not conscious of anything I’m playing and I’m unaware of the before and after state. I often have to ask people if the music was any good, because I have no memory of it. The idea is that you, the audience, complete the music with whatever comes up within.

When Carson attended the New England Conservatory his studies with Joe Maneri, Cecil Taylor, and the poet Robert Creeley led him to a dramatic life change: he walked away from music and spent two years backpacking and farming overland from Spain to Japan. After his return to Northern Alberta, Canada, he then spent five years designing, building, and practicing in a remote straw bale cabin. The musical result was multilayered, detailed, meditative, and harmonious. He lives in New York City and returns to his cabin regularly.

Cabin Music is Carson’s two-decade effort to transform the way in which music is created. Drawing on his years building and practicing in an isolated straw bale cabin, Carson’s performances remove his own intentions by receiving and channeling all forces and energies within and beyond the performance space. His award-winning feature documentary debut initiates audiences into the project’s global origins.

Event Details:
Wednesday, March 19, 7 PM. Tickets $20; $16 members of Cotuit Center for the Arts and the Woods Hole Film Festival. Tickets are on sale in advance at www.artsonthecape.org and at the door if they are not sold out in advance. For ticket information email info@cotuitcenterforthearts.org or call (508) 428-0669.

 The Festival is supported in part by grants from the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, the Woods Hole Foundation, the Falmouth Fund of the Cape Cod Foundation, the Cape Cod Foundation, the Martha’s Vineyard Bank Charitable Foundation and Cape Cod 5.

For more information email info@woodsholefilmfestival.org or call (508) 495-3456.