Outside Sound, along with Center for Creative Works and SpArc Philadelphia, is putting on a live music and art event at the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Parkway Central Library at 6:30pm. This event will feature artwork made by adults with disabilities accompanied by live original music inspired by the artwork.
Free / 120 minutes

Outside Sound is a mixed-media project that takes artwork created by adults with developmental disabilities and sets it to original music. Since its start in 2012 the project has held live public concerts/gallery events in Philadelphia, Boston, and Minneapolis, music intensive workshops at six participating art programs, and the curation of musical recordings and an art booklet. The art programs involved are Center for Creative Works in Lower Merion/Wynnewood PA, Oasis Art Center in center city Philadelphia, SpArc in Northwest Philadelphia, Outside the Lines in Medford, MA, Interact Art Center in Minneapolis, and Midwest Special Services in the greater Minneapolis area. Recently, Outside Sound has also been presented via educational workshops in several Philadelphia area schools, including Our Lady of Confidence and Horsham Quaker School which both have special needs programming. The idea behind Outside Sound was formulated by Chris Coyle (project director and composer) after he began working with adults with developmental disabilities during the summer of 2011. Though he was conducting music workshops with the population at Center for Creative Works, it was the artwork that he saw being made there that turned his head immediately. Here was a group of creative, outwardly kind people making everything from paintings to ceramic pieces, from plaster sculptures to stop-motion animation videos. With the assistance of a dedicated staff of professional artists, the participants were expressing themselves and unabashedly showing who they were, what they liked or disliked, and what they felt. Chris saw great effort and progress with the musical involvement, at the time a new endeavor at CCW, with these same participants and eventually he came to a conclusion: by combining their artwork with a musical component the art could be enhanced and could easily be showcased in a brand new way and to audiences that wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to it. From the start, Outside Sound has been extremely interactive and collaborative. While the resulting original music is inspired by corresponding artwork, it also speaks to the experiences shared between the artists and Coyle as well as the other musicians and art staff involved. Some of the compositions feature performance contributions from the artists themselves.