Concert in the Cone: Collaboration in the Arts
The Third Thursday of every month is always a boisterous time at the Museum. With free admission from 5-8pm, families, students, and other members of the local community visit for an evening of wandering the galleries and cozying up in the Cone to watch the Hot Shop Team’s live glassblowing demonstrations. The 2022 November Third Thursday program was extra special, as Museum of Glass presented Concert in the Cone: Tacoma Sounds the Americas.
Kareem Kandi World Orchestra Jazz Quartet and Northwest Sinfonietta String Quartet performing in the Hot Shop.
The concert featured the unique fusion of the Northwest Sinfonietta string quartet, the jazz quartet from the Kareem Kandi World Orchestra, and coordinated glassblowing by the Museum of Glass Hot Shop Team and Hilltop Artists. The concert’s original score, composed by Kareem Kandi, was written to celebrate many of Tacoma’s well-known locales, including Point Defiance Pagoda, Sixth Avenue, Ruston Way, Pacific Avenue, and more. During the musicians’ performance, the Museum of Glass Hot Shop Team, assisted by students from the Hilltop Artists program, created a piece of glass art inspired by the music - a black-and-white cylindrical vessel wrapped in a music staff.
Hilltop Artists at work on the Hot Shop floor.
The finished piece!
The crowd of concertgoers filled the Cone to bursting, with those who arrived too late to snag a seat spilling out into the Grand Hall to watch the performance on the Hot Shop Livestream. Museum members were invited to attend a coinciding member lounge during the event, which featured a Glass Symphony interactive station. Guests were able to compose their own music using a Playtronica device attached to a series of glass goblets hand-blown by the Hot Shop Team.
The marvelous Concert in the Cone crowd.
Museum of Glass looks forward to expanding our partnerships with local arts organizations to find creative and collaborative intersections in our work, and to further our joint leadership in the Tacoma community and beyond.
Thank you to Tacoma Arts Commission for their generous support of this event.