Music is an integral part of the cultural ecosystem. This is most true in Detroit, where the melodies of a song can foster ideas and emotion. Yesterday, I attended the first cultural event of our season with our partners at Detroit Passport to the Arts (DP2A): Structurally Sound was a Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings Concert at Recycle Here! The location itself is the plant in which Henry Leland first built Lincoln automobiles; today it’s Detroit’s recycling hub.

It was cool to see the space re-purposed into such a unique venue & recycling space after decades of vacancy. Just as the space had been re-purposed and re-imagined, the music was too. The imagination of Marcus Schoon, a 20+ year musician of the DSO, retrofitted old standards and classical masterworks into contemporary jazz.

The concert engaged all the senses as attendees gazed at vivid works of art that covered the space’s interior framework. This recycling center is unlike any other. The 30-foot walls serve as enormous canvases suited for artistic expression. Outside, numerous three-dimensional sculptures and murals create the Lincoln Street Art Park. Even the street canvased an artistic presence. In fact, one of the murals in the train overpass was created with the help of Challenge Detroit Program Director Shelley Danner during a Van Dusen workshop with Little Things Labs.

The event was an engaging experience to explore art and music. Listening to contemporary jazz inside of what was once an auto-assembly plant is something I would never have considered a possibility just a few months ago. I guess anything is possible in Detroit; you are only limited by your imagination. So dream on Detroit!

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