Riding a train is not just a visual experience-it can be an auditory adventure. Think of the chuga-chuga of the axles rotating, the squeal of steel wheels on a track, the blast of the horn as a train approaches a station, and the dinging of the barriers going down at a crossing.
In a few weeks people who love those sounds might want to check out a specially commissioned percussion piece called "Music for Trains."
The project is a collaboration of two of the region’s prominent arts agencies: Brattleboro Museum and Art Center and the Rockingham Arts and Museum Project. The former is housed in an old rail station and the offices of the latter are rattled by the trains that pass through Bellows Falls every day. So when the Vermont Performance Lab brought these arts agencies together, trains seemed a perfect inspiration.
The groups have brought the Brooklyn-based percussion group called "So Percussion" to take the pulse of Bellows Falls and Brattleboro and the railroad that runs between them. The percussionists have been working out of an open barn in Marlboro, where we paid them a visit.