Jack Straw Productions works closely with arts and heritage organizations and community groups to develop and implement special projects. We record and document cultural heritage, encourage new works among contemporary composers, and conduct interviews and oral histories for radio, for audio guides, and for podcasts.

• Modern Talk: NW Architects Oral History Project
• Lake Union & Portage Bay Oral History Project
  (Past Forward)
  
• Seattle Art Museum Audio Guide
• Museum of Glass Audio Guide (Tacoma, Washington)
• Arboretum and Center for Urban Horticulture Audio Guide
  
• Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Centennial Radio Project
• Green ACRE Radio
• Native American Stories of Washington
• Jack Straw/AIR Live Interactive Residency: Radiolingual

• Traditional Artist Support Program (1998)
• Korean Music Concert Series (1997)
• Composers-in-Residence (1998-2001)
• Virtual Concert / Music in Motion (1999-2000)

• Salmon in the City (2001)
• University District Public Art & Culture Audio Tour (2000-2001)
• Beacon Library Neighborhood Writers (2003)
• ArtsUp Partnership Projects (2002-2003)

Modern Talk: NW Architects Oral History Project

Jack Straw is partnering with Docomomo WEWA (Documentation of the Modern Movement, Western Washington) to document the lives and work of local architects who forged modern design in the Puget Sound area. Among architects who will be interviewed are Ralph Anderson, Fred Bassetti, Wendell Lovett, and Gene Zema. Selected audio clips and photographs of the architects’ work will be presented on the Docomomo web site. To learn more about the project and the architects, please visit Docomomo WEWA.

Lake Union and Portage Bay Oral History Project

This oral history project captures memories and stories of Lake Union and Portage Bay from a range of community experts and elders. We interviewed long-time houseboat residents, bridge tenders, shipbuilders, architects, and other local figures with a connection to the lake. The focus of interviews is the history and development of the lakeside neighborhoods. You can view a presentation of photos and selected audio clips here.

Jack Straw produced the audio guide for the Pacific Connections Garden in the Arboretum, a 12-acre swath of the park that has undergone a major renovation. The new garden features plants from five geographic zones: Central Chile, China, New Zealand, Southeastern Australia, and Cascadia (the Pacific Northwest). The audio guide provides visitors with information about iconic plants from each region. The project also includes an audio guide for the gardens at the Center for Urban Horticulture.

You can listen to the audio guide here.

Jack Straw and producer Harriet Baskas have partnered to produce a series of short radio pieces about the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. You can read all about it and listen to the first piece in the series at the AYP Centennial Radio Project site.

Martha Baskin and Jack Straw Productions present Green ACRE Radio, bringing you the Agricultural, Conservation, Resource, and Environmental information you need every week on KBCS FM. Check out the KBCS site to listen to and read about the episodes.

Native American Stories of Washington

Native American Stories of Washington is a project designed to document and preserve stories and legends (with professional quality recordings), as told by some of Washington state’s important Native American tradition bearers from the Lummi, Yakama, Jamestown S’Klallam, Chehalis, Skokomish (Twana), Quinalt and Squaxin tribes.  It was coordinated by Northwest Heritage Resources, in partnership with Jack Straw Productions and the Longhouse Education and Cultural Center at The Evergreen State College.  

Native American elders and storytellers from Washington state who have been recorded for the project in 2008:
Virginia Beavert - Yakama; Pauline Hillaire - Lummi; Curtis DuPuis - Chehalis; Delbert Miller - Skokomish; Elaine Grinnell – Jamestown S’Klallam; Harvest Moon – Quinalt; Cecil Cheeka – Makah & Squaxin

NEW! – CD recording made as part of this project

Lummi Legends: Pauline Hillaire
CD includes 6 traditional Lummi legends as told to Pauline by her father, Kwul-Kwul-‘tu (Joseph Hillaire).
To order, go to cdbaby.com/cd/hillaire
CDs can also be purchased directly from Pauline Hillaire or Northwest Heritage Resources.

This project was funded in part by the Folk & Traditional Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts, and we also wish to extend our thanks to the Washington State Arts Commission for ongoing support.

Yakama elder and storyteller Virginia Beavert in the recording studio at Jack Straw Productions.

Jack Straw has partnered with the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR) and KUOW for the Live-Interactive Residency. We are currently hosting resident Hammad Ahmed, who has started RadioLingual, a new project to increase the diversity of voices, accents, and languages on the radio airwaves. Hammad and his partner Emily Eagle will co-create radio broadcasts and podcasts with English Language Learners in person and via the Web.

The Live-Interactive Residency is a project of The Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), Jack Straw Productions, & KUOW. Support for the project comes from AIR, Jack Straw, KUOW, and their members, and from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes a great nation deserves great art. Special thanks to University of Washington ELL programs, University Presbyterian Church Language Institute, and the Seattle Public Library.

Jack Straw has been documenting and presenting the Northwest's best traditional music performers of various world cultures. The Traditional Artist Support Program features performers from India, Korea, Mexico and Puerto Rico. "Safarini" features musicians originally from the African Continent.

In the spring of 1997, Jack Straw produced a series of Korean music concerts in co-sponsorship with the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

This series presents a unique opportunity to hear three masters of kayagum perform three distinctive musical styles of sanjo, or instrumental solo accompanied by a drummer. Literally meaning "scattered melodies," sanjo is a popular form developed in the late 19th century from shamanistic ritual music in southwestern Korea. Initial slow sections challenge the performers skill in creating subtle tonal variations, while concluding fast sections are virtuostic displays.

Performers in this concert series included Jung-Ae Lee, Moon-Jin Choi, and Hye-Jin Chang

Special funding provided for long-term residencies by local composers. These composers created and recorded new works, engaged the community through education projects and composers talks at Jack Straw Productions. Past compsers-in-Residence include:

• Janice Giteck (1998-2001)
• Jovino Santos-Neto (1999)
• Rand Steiger (1998)
• Obo Addy and Julian Priester (1999)
  
  

Created by composer Mark Weber, Joseph Franklin of the Relache Ensemble in Philadelphia and Suzanne Fetscher of the Atlantic Center for Arts, the VirtualConcert was an exploration of the creative uses of the internet for the composition of music. During two residencies at Jack Straw, the West Coast site of this national project, the California EAR Unit assembled works of music intended to be experienced both online and at concerts in the real world.

Please investigate the East Coast component of this project to see what Mark Weber and the Relache ensemble are constructing at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida.

Music In Motion was created by Joseph Franklin, Founding Director of Relache and Metadesign Associates (META) in association with Suzanne Fetscher, Executive Director of Atlantic Center for the Arts (ACA) with funds provided by the Pew Charitable Trusts, Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. The mission of Music in Motion is to build audiences for the musical arts through a national network of collaborative residencies among composers, performing ensembles and host sites in the context of a variety of community outreach activities. The VirtualConcert is the second phase of the Music in Motion project.

In the first phase of this project, Jack Straw Productions hosted a Music in Motion Event at its studios on March 8th, 1996. Zeitgeist, a new music ensemble from Minneapolis, played works in progress by Music In Motion commissioned composers Jarrad Powell and David Mahler, in addition to performing compositions by Tony Stark and W.C. Handy.

The "Salmon in the City" project celebrates the presence and heritage of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. In May 2001, fifteen temporary artworks were commissioned within the City of Seattle to create awareness of the recent listing of Chinook Salmon as endangered under the Endangered Species act of the United States. Jack Straw was a partner in two projects, "Salmon Suite" by poet Judith Roche and "Salmon Cycle" by artist Jim Pridgeon.

Produced in 2000-2001, this audio walking tour is a fun way to explore and learn about public art and architecture in Seattle's University District. The audio tour kit can be checked out from 3 venues including Jack Straw. You can download the map on the Seattle Arts Commission website and listen to the audio clips on the Seattle Greater University Chamber of Commerce site.

With the building of the new Beacon Hill Branch of the Seattle Public Library, a call was made to Beacon Hill area writers to be featured in an ongoing audio installation. Seven writers were selected, and after participating in vocal workshops, conducted studio recordings of their original writing at Jack Straw Productions. These recordings can be heard in the entryway and patio of the library.

ArtsUp Partnership Projects

Artist Residencies Transforming Seattle's Urban Places : ARTS UP

A project of Seattle's Office of Arts and Culture Affairs, ArtsUp is designed to encourage creative interaction between artists and communities, by teaming community groups with artists to produce art projects exploring community issues.

This unique program defines community very broadly, not only by geographic or ethnic boundaries, but also by shared interests or lived experience. The Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs seeks to recognize our city's diversity and complexity in the selection of communities for ARTS UP.

Jack Straw Productions played a central role in audio production and advising for the following projects:

• Kawabe Memorial House and Rene Yung
• Peace for the Streets by Kids from the Streets and Bradley McCallum (project site: "Endurance")
• Neighborhood House and Celine Rich
• Sacajawea Elementary School and Janice Giteck