SONOSYNTHESIS: the fusion of sound
WHAT IS SONOSYNTHESIS? SONOSYNTHESIS is a creative, classical benefit concert series founded, produced, and performed by Cari Shipp, flutist in Charlottesville, Virginia established in 2017.
WHAT DOES SONOSYNTHESIS MEAN? SONOSYNTHESIS means the fusion of sound. Yes, Cari made that up.
WHAT IS THE MISSION OF SONOSYNTHESIS?: The mission of SONOSYNTHESIS is to produce top-tier musical performances that are accessible to a wide range of listeners in partnership with organizations working for justice and peace in our community. Proceeds are increased by the ensuring performances are superb. This is achieved by paying professional musicians and hosting the concerts in affordable but comfortable settings able to accommodate the performance.
HOW MANY CONCERTS AND WHO HAS BENEFITTED? Since 2017 there have been over twelve concerts benefiting local organizations including IMPACT C’ville, AHIP Home Repair Nonprofit, The Women’s Initiative, New City Arts, The Alyssa House, and more. There are generally between two and four SONOSYNTHESIS concerts per year. See past concert information here.
Fusing local music with local organizations
Seeking to connect with her community in a meaningful way, Cari decided to use her talents to support organizations already doing the work to make Charlottesville a more just, accessible place for everyone.
Each concert, Cari donates the proceeds (after paying those who made the concert possible a fair wage, unless they request to donate their services) of her concert to a local organization. She has teamed with IMPACT C’ville, The Alyssa House, New City Arts, and Thomas Jefferson Adult Career Education as well as a concert for RAICES Texas which, while not local to Charlottesville, is local to Cari’s home town of El Paso, Texas.
In addition to supporting these organizations, Cari wishes to draw more people in to classical and local music. It is a joy to work with the organizations and meet their supporters!
Fusing the sounds of music
Most music is not made up of just one person playing one note at a time, though there is certainly a place for that! (see sonosynthesis: ONE, April 2022) But by fusing together the sounds of different instruments, different people, and sometimes different styles.
As a classically trained flutist, Cari’s tendency is to perform with other classical musicians and she has done so, sharing the stage in this series with Jeremy Thompson, piano, Colin Davin, guitar, and Juliana Marin, soprano. She has also shared the stage with singer/songwriter (but also classically trained) Julie Bernstein, and literal rock star Parker Stanley (former member of Tim Be Told). She has also given a concert in which she fuses a live performance with recordings of herself! A one-woman show of solo flute music, as well as chamber flute music.
By bringing together different musicians and styles, the music making and listening experience is deepened.
Fusing classical music with relatability for everyone
Don’t be fooled by her education, Cari has plenty of sass to counteract all that class(ical training), and she uses that sass to help make classical music more sassical. Cari enjoys researching and learning about the pieces she’s performing and finding ways to make those pieces relatable, whether by including it in her concert Story of my Life (April 2018) or by creating a series of slides to play live at specific moments á la Vh1 Pop-Up Video in her concert Pop-Up Classical (May 2019). She also does classically, well, classical things like host a Schubertiade (October 2019) in which she performed almost the entire works of Schubert for flute. She also received many compliments for her detailed program notes for Poetry & Prose (October 2021) which were meant to be read while listening similar to reading tasting notes while drinking a glass of wine.
While she first and foremost considers herself a flutist as her profession, this concert has provided the opportunity for Cari explore other ways of being creative and fuse those with her flute playing. Cari produces all of her SONOSYNTHESIS concerts which entails finding and booking the venue, hiring other musicians, and managing all advertising and communications with the benefitting organization, etc. While Cari is happy to do those things (control serves up a good dose of power), the real joy aside from performing (the best high) is coming up with the theme, writing all the material, and designing the posters/images.
These things have forced Cari to expand her skills and takes a great many hours of additional work but is well worth it to be able to put on these concerts about which she is rather passionate, as you might expect.