Music Club – The Indigo Project: A Musical Journey Across Three Continents

Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 7:45 pm – 9:00 pm EST

The Indigo Project: a musical journey across three continents

Alison Mackay  explores the cultural influence of a powerful blue dye.

This event will be broadcast online and is free and open to all – there is no login or registration required. Watch the livestream here.

Indigo is one of the world’s most ancient dyes. Its story intersects in fascinating ways with the history of music, art, fashion, and science, and provides a vivid backdrop for a concert of Indian and European music. The 2020 Indigo Project was an exploration in music, words, and images of the influence of indigo dye on the culture and economy of Europe and India in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Featuring the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, distinguished South Indian musicians Suba and Trichy Sankaran, and a 50-voice choir of high-school students, the project included mainstage concerts and educational projects involving music and textiles. Alison Mackay, creator of this multi-media project, joins us to share its story and its music. Illustrated with video excerpts from the original performance, her talk will explore the genesis of the project and its reach into the community, as well as the implications for environmental protection and economic justice in our world today.

Alison Mackay is a Toronto musician who was principal double-bass player in the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra for 40 years. Her multi-media projects have toured across the world, and five of them have been made into documentary films. Her Galileo Project was honoured by the International Astronomical Union with the naming of Asteroid “197856 Tafelmusik” and her children’s adventure, The Quest for Arundo Donax, won the 2006 Juno Award for best children’s recording of the year. Alison is the recipient of the 2013 Betty Webster Award for her contributions to orchestral life in Canada.

Photo Credit: Dahlia Katz