10
Jun
2003
In her fifth month as director of the River Music Experience, Connie Gibbons is working against time. There was the time she's missed - more than a year of planning and community discussion - and the time still ahead, 12 months to the museum's anticipated opening in the renovated Redstone building on Second Street between Main and Brady in downtown Davenport.
Her job has been a combination of catching up - "filtering through all the work that was done," she said - and looking ahead - "formulating that into some kind of plan."
It's a daunting task, but one that Gibbons seems up to. It's not unlike her last job.
She was the founding director of the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, Texas, which opened in 1999. She had directed the city's visual-arts program but started working on the Buddy Holly Center in 1997. She saw the project through from conception to completion and beyond. The Buddy Holly Center and the River Music Experience have similar square-footages and budgets, too.
Gibbons said she decided to take the River Music Experience job because she liked the community energy in the Quad Cities. She also said she wanted "the opportunity to be in on the ground floor of a project that has a broader scope."
Her time frame is tight, and Gibbons said her biggest concerns are getting the permanent exhibit completed and installed and having construction of the building finished. Gibbons wants to have research and other materials for the permanent exhibit done by late fall or early winter, with installation starting in early spring. She wants to have the Experience's governing board in place by the first of the year, so it has time to conduct strategic planning and set policies and guidelines.
The River Music Experience is scheduled to have construction costs of $8.4 million and an annual operating budget of $1.2 million. Money for construction has come from the Vision Iowa program ($7 million), a federal grant ($800,000), and the City of Davenport ($150,000), with $500,000 still to be raised. Operating revenues for the first year are anticipated to come from an upcoming membership drive, earned revenues from admissions, leases from tenant businesses, and a share of the revenues of the facility's club and restaurant.
The museum, which is one component in Davenport's River Renaissance package, will feature a permanent exhibit tracing American roots music - blues, jazz, folk, bluegrass, country, Cajun, and zydeco - to its geographic and cultural roots. The exhibit will encompass the 1600s to the mid-1960s and cover not just music but river and material culture as well. The exhibit will take a geographic approach, using five "ports of call" (including New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, and the Quad Cities) to discuss the origins and development of different types of river music.
While the focus will be the river, there will also be elements discussing how the music traveled from river cities to urban areas such as Chicago.
Gibbons said the American roots theme emerged from community discussion and planning, as well as independently from two focus groups done in the Chicago area in recent months. "All of my sources kept leading me back to American roots music," she said.
Technology and performance will play a key role in the permanent exhibition, with interactive components - such as a "river wall" that allows people at access information by pointing - and numerous stations for intimate musical performances and education. There will also be profiles of about 500 musicians, interactive programs for children, and a section devoted to Quad Cities legends.
The museum will also feature a handful of traveling exhibits each year, and a performance space with a capacity of roughly 150 people.
Smaller performance venues will be located in a first-floor restaurant and a basement bar/club. A single committee will approve live performances at all the venues, to "avoid conflicts," Gibbons said. The restaurant and club will be operated by outside entities, but Gibbons said selection will be important, to ensure sensitivity to the River Music Experience theme and that prices are affordable.
Traveling exhibitions will be a key to connecting the history of river music to contemporary audiences, Gibbons said, and that's the area that clearly excites her. "That's easy," she said. "That's the fun part."
River music can be heard in all sorts of contemporary artists, she said. "Any serious musician will acknowledge and is aware of the roots," Gibbons said. The music of Wilco, Dave Mathews Band, and hip-hop "would not be what it is without American roots music," she said. "The music doesn't happen in a vacuum."
Gibbons sounds truly energized about some of the possibilities for temporary exhibitions, including those involving album covers. (She's certainly interested in taking a multidisciplinary approach to river music, incorporating visual arts.)
And Gibbons seems plugged in to contemporary culture. She's on the nominating committee of the Americana Music Awards and is as comfortable talking about today's artists as she is legends.
She also seems enthusiastic about making connections with the local music community. Many artists these days are taking control of their music, and Gibbons sees the River Music Experience as a way to "encourage young people to be part of this economic machine."
And that's not just talk. The advisory Exhibits Committee includes representatives of the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society and the Mississippi Valley Blues Society, as well as people involved in the local arts community, such as Rachael Mullins, Nate Lawrence, and Les Bell. Local musicians also served as models for a promotional campaign that - along with the River Music Experience logo - should be finalized this week.
"I see us as being a huge resource for musicians," she said.
Her job has been a combination of catching up - "filtering through all the work that was done," she said - and looking ahead - "formulating that into some kind of plan."
It's a daunting task, but one that Gibbons seems up to. It's not unlike her last job.
She was the founding director of the Buddy Holly Center in Lubbock, Texas, which opened in 1999. She had directed the city's visual-arts program but started working on the Buddy Holly Center in 1997. She saw the project through from conception to completion and beyond. The Buddy Holly Center and the River Music Experience have similar square-footages and budgets, too.
Gibbons said she decided to take the River Music Experience job because she liked the community energy in the Quad Cities. She also said she wanted "the opportunity to be in on the ground floor of a project that has a broader scope."
Her time frame is tight, and Gibbons said her biggest concerns are getting the permanent exhibit completed and installed and having construction of the building finished. Gibbons wants to have research and other materials for the permanent exhibit done by late fall or early winter, with installation starting in early spring. She wants to have the Experience's governing board in place by the first of the year, so it has time to conduct strategic planning and set policies and guidelines.
The River Music Experience is scheduled to have construction costs of $8.4 million and an annual operating budget of $1.2 million. Money for construction has come from the Vision Iowa program ($7 million), a federal grant ($800,000), and the City of Davenport ($150,000), with $500,000 still to be raised. Operating revenues for the first year are anticipated to come from an upcoming membership drive, earned revenues from admissions, leases from tenant businesses, and a share of the revenues of the facility's club and restaurant.
The museum, which is one component in Davenport's River Renaissance package, will feature a permanent exhibit tracing American roots music - blues, jazz, folk, bluegrass, country, Cajun, and zydeco - to its geographic and cultural roots. The exhibit will encompass the 1600s to the mid-1960s and cover not just music but river and material culture as well. The exhibit will take a geographic approach, using five "ports of call" (including New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, and the Quad Cities) to discuss the origins and development of different types of river music.
While the focus will be the river, there will also be elements discussing how the music traveled from river cities to urban areas such as Chicago.
Gibbons said the American roots theme emerged from community discussion and planning, as well as independently from two focus groups done in the Chicago area in recent months. "All of my sources kept leading me back to American roots music," she said.
Technology and performance will play a key role in the permanent exhibition, with interactive components - such as a "river wall" that allows people at access information by pointing - and numerous stations for intimate musical performances and education. There will also be profiles of about 500 musicians, interactive programs for children, and a section devoted to Quad Cities legends.
The museum will also feature a handful of traveling exhibits each year, and a performance space with a capacity of roughly 150 people.
Smaller performance venues will be located in a first-floor restaurant and a basement bar/club. A single committee will approve live performances at all the venues, to "avoid conflicts," Gibbons said. The restaurant and club will be operated by outside entities, but Gibbons said selection will be important, to ensure sensitivity to the River Music Experience theme and that prices are affordable.
Traveling exhibitions will be a key to connecting the history of river music to contemporary audiences, Gibbons said, and that's the area that clearly excites her. "That's easy," she said. "That's the fun part."
River music can be heard in all sorts of contemporary artists, she said. "Any serious musician will acknowledge and is aware of the roots," Gibbons said. The music of Wilco, Dave Mathews Band, and hip-hop "would not be what it is without American roots music," she said. "The music doesn't happen in a vacuum."
Gibbons sounds truly energized about some of the possibilities for temporary exhibitions, including those involving album covers. (She's certainly interested in taking a multidisciplinary approach to river music, incorporating visual arts.)
And Gibbons seems plugged in to contemporary culture. She's on the nominating committee of the Americana Music Awards and is as comfortable talking about today's artists as she is legends.
She also seems enthusiastic about making connections with the local music community. Many artists these days are taking control of their music, and Gibbons sees the River Music Experience as a way to "encourage young people to be part of this economic machine."
And that's not just talk. The advisory Exhibits Committee includes representatives of the Bix Beiderbecke Memorial Society and the Mississippi Valley Blues Society, as well as people involved in the local arts community, such as Rachael Mullins, Nate Lawrence, and Les Bell. Local musicians also served as models for a promotional campaign that - along with the River Music Experience logo - should be finalized this week.
"I see us as being a huge resource for musicians," she said.
