(WARRENSBURG, Mo.) – A UCM professor is partnering with the Blackberry Winter Band for a multimedia concert Monday, April 28.
The Blackberry Winter Band earned critical acclaim for the soundtrack to the Academy Award-nominated independent film “Winter’s Bone.” The band will use the photography of John Hess in their multimedia performance, “Green Soul of the Ozarks: Blackberry Winter Band” at 7:30 p.m. in Hendricks Hall.
The show is free and open to the public.
This is the second year the Blackberry Winter Band and Hess have collaborated as part of the annual Earth Week celebration. The band performs folk and Ozark hill music, combined with Hess’ nature photography.
During location scouting for the film, producer Debra Granik asked folk singer and storyteller Marideth Sisco to assemble musicians to create the soundtrack for the film set in the Missouri Ozarks. “Winter’s Bone”took top honors at Sundance and earned a Golden Globe and four Oscar nominations. The film was also featured in the first Show Me Justice Film Festival in Warrensburg.
Hess is a scientist who combines his knowledge of biology with the aesthetic of an artist. He is a professor emeritus of biology at UCM and taught evolutionary biology, ornithology and photography for more than 30 years. He has been active in photography for more than 40 years. His subjects are almost always natural, but they range in scale from broad panoramas to microscopic organisms.
Hess’ book, “The Galapagos: Exploring Darwin’s Tapestry” was published in 2009, the result of seven days spent on the islands.
Hess has exhibited his work at the UCM Gallery of Art and Design during the past 35 years, and more recently at the Erdman Gallery of the Princeton Theological Seminary. In 2006, he was awarded an artist-in-residency at Rocky Mountain National Park, and again in 2007 at Mesa Verde.
He began combining imagery with music in 2011, first in the classical vein with “The Darwin Project” at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City. He first collaborated with Sisco and the Blackberry Winter Band at the Folly Theater.