The collaboration of food, crafts and live music gave both the DePauw community and Greencastle residents a reason to flock to Greencastle's farmers' market to witness Chicago's Fifth House Ensemble perform on Saturday.
The Ensemble was invited to participate in a residency with DePauw building up to year-long project entitled "The Harvest." The project is a way to pay tribute to the Putnam County community by celebrating the culture and the stories of the people that work here through a big concert.
Mark McCoy, dean of the School of Music, is one of the many people behind the project who believe that the county's people should be celebrated through the power of music and storytelling.
"We want to show the farming community, the agricultural community, that classical music has something to say for them too," McCoy said. "We want to do a tribute to the people who've been our heroes in Putnam County."
McCoy discovered the group while watching some of their performances in Chicago. The Fifth House Ensemble is a large, mixed-instrumentation ensemble varying from wind to strings instruments and piano. The age range of the artist is 23 to 40. Executive Director for the Ensemble, Melissa Snoza, also plays an instrument for the group as a flutist. The ensemble has one of each instrument mastered by a member of the group.
During the event, vendors sold arts and crafts while the ensemble played tunes ranging from contemporary, including Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" to classical pieces like Bach. Vendor Dennis Boothby, who has been selling his rustic country life art work at the market for four years, thought the inclusion of music added to the spirit of the market.
"Who would think to go to the farmer's market and get culture?" he said. "I love the music and it's more like a bazaar but instead it's just a regular farmer's market."
In the future, McCoy wants to adapt a similar project for Putnam County that the ensemble did for Chicago entitled Caught.
"The whole point of [Caught] was to catch stories like little fireflies in a jar from different people within the city of Chicago."
Snoza and the ensemble learned about the stories of different neighborhoods in Chicago through varying social circles. They pieced together all the material they found in final performances that were presented in those areas. This is the vision they hope people in Greencastle could also experience.
"Music is the sort of thing that brings people together," Snoza said. "I think that everybody has got a story and a lot of our stories relate to each other in ways that are really unexpected."
McCoy gathered with communities within Putnam County made up of farmers, local musicians and others to start planning for the event that will be held on Mother's Day in spring 2014. Besides honoring mothers, McCoy believes that Mother's Day would be a significant day to hold the concert because of the many reasons behind the word "harvest."
Paula Evans, who is a long time volunteer for the farmer's market, believes that the collaborating musical acts from the university at the farmer's market is doing positive things for the market.
"It was fun and it brought in people who haven't been here before and maybe profit some people who sometimes come to come [more]."
Evans said she hopes to see more DePauw students volunteer and visit the market more often.
"Many brains make for a smarter work and many hands make for a lighter work," she said.
Junior Curt Hardacre is the new market managing master who helps run the market alongside the Evans. Although he just started the position, Hardacre still thinks that the collaboration with the Fifth House Ensemble will be great for the market.
"They just try to bring out their passion in the community not just with themselves, but they go out to the audience, talk to them and bring music to everybody," Hardacre said.
Although the event is a while away, Fifth House Ensemble is eager to learn more about the stories of Putnam County and DePauw so they could bring their stories to light.
"We're going to have some new music that has the story in mind." said Drew Williams, violinist for Fifth House Ensemble.
McCoy believes that The Harvest project would be an opportunity to bring the town and the university together to share the story not only Putnam County's story but DePauw's story in relation to the town.
"This is not a DePauw concert, this is not a community event, this is not a school of music thing," McCoy said. "This is a tribute to all of us."