Spokane artist Harold Balazs had a crazy idea.
While creating the steel sculpture Spokane Public Radio had commissioned for the Fire Station No. 3 Courtyard, he realized the different components would ring with different tones when gently struck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eic0Cz8ebYM">Why not get a few percussionists to “play” the artwork?
In September 2016, SPR held a small ceremony to dedicate the Jim Sheehan Family Courtyard at the new broadcast facility in the historic Fire Station No. 3. This move to a new facility “rang in” a new era of service. Spokane Symphony percussionists Bryan Bogue, Paul Raymond and Adam Wallstein volunteered to do the striking. Jim Sheehan and Family looked on with Harold Balazs and friends as the percussionists improvised a six-minute piece on “Listen,” the sculpture Balazs fashioned to abstractly suggest a human ear.
Video by Don Hamilton and Hamilton Studio, audio recorded by Jim Tevenan