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About The Everyone Orchestra
THE EVERYONE ORCHESTRA is a revolving cast of stellar musicians brought together by drummer/conductor Matt Butler for concerts, festival super jams and special benefit events. EO performances are designed to create space for each performer's musical personality to shine, engage the audience as participants in the jam and to facilitate a massive celebratory coming together featuring a conductor directing both musicians and audience alike in interactive, lively, and highly danceable movements.
"We pass the 'musical talking stick' around the collective group of players and take turns leading the stage, much like sharing music around a campfire. We also play musical improv games that I sometimes refer to as 'music sports'. Then we culminate in moments when everyone is on stage at once, playing conducted improvisations together," says Butler, who is also the founder of the group.
The Everyone Orchestra has performed its shows nationally featuring members of The Grateful Dead, Phish, ALO, Disco Biscuits, The Derek Trucks Band, Fishbone, Poi Dog Pondering, String Cheese Incident, and Steve Kimock, G. Love, painters, dancers, hula hoopers, firespinners, stiltwalkers, activists, presidential candidates, storytellers and hundreds of others.
While Butler is the primary conductor, others who have taken the helm of EO include Zilla's Jamie Janover, former Leftover Salmon bassman Tye North, Jon Fishman, SCI's Michael Travis, ALO's Dan Lebowitz and Zach Giil, Kai Eckhardt, Jambay's Mike Sugar plus other musicians and lucky members of the audience.
Through the events and work of The Everyone Orchestra, close to $100,000 has been raised for contributions to non-profit and environmental organizations around the nation.
The Everyone Team
The Everyone Orchestra was founded with the intention of bringing together high caliber musicians with
organizations, speakers and issues paramount to all of us in an
interactive, creative, meaningful celebration. Since 2001, Matt
has catalyzed more than 25 of these events around the nation.
He credits a core team of quality people who support him by providing
a sounding board and enthusiastic participation that include:
Sound Reinforcement
That crystal clear sound is no accident and a lot
of hard work. Soundman extraordinaire Michael Wilson
follows us to the remote theaters of the nation to interface with
the intricate technical needs of so many musicians on stage and
does it with such aplomb. Michael’s even keel and heartful
support behind the scenes truly endear him to us. He spends his
time between San Francisco and his recording studio in Eugene, Harmony
Studios.
Painters
Each Everyone Orchestra experience has an artist
or two interpreting the scene around them on canvas with paint.
The creations are mighty and capture the raw, live essence of what
it’s like to be at the scene. Paintings are auctioned with
proceeds split between the artist and the benefiting organization
and are the ultimate good time souvenir. Check out a couple of our
perennial painters: Lang
Schwartzwald,
Joel Barber, www.louise.clow.com
Activists
No EO experience would be complete without the participation
on the benefiting non-profit organization and an affiliated speaker.
We’ve been honored by some incredible, inspiring speakers
who sometimes get out the jam with us too. Some of them include
Julia Butterfly Hill ,
Dennis Kucinich and
storyteller Lou
Gold.
The Women of EO
Everyone Orchestra believes that our music scene
is entirely too dominated by men and intends to make a dent in that.
Some of our favorite kickass collaborators of the female persuasion
have included Libby Kirkpatrick,
Maya Dorn, Shelley
Doty, Melissa Crabtree,
Hope Clayburn,
Enion Pelta and Julia
Butterfly Hill.
You, yes you
There are no spectators during Everyone Orchestra
jams. Concert-goers are invited by the conductor to cheer, applaud,
boo, shake hands and booties, do a musical version of the wave,
and more. Sometimes there’s even a raffle to win a spot to
conduct the Orchestra! Everyone is encouraged to check out the tabling
information provided by the benefiting organization, the live art
creations and in general, to be as participatory as possible.
PR and Marketing
Heard about EO? It’s probably due in some
part to the efforts of our publicity and marketing team. Dave
Weissman is fearless in his output of creative ideas to
help spread the word and the good vibes. Dave is a much bigger part
of the team than his publicist label implies.
www.musicalearth.net Marketing maven Julie
van Amerongen brings her years of experience marketing natural
lifestyle products, work for record labels and artists and activist
dedication to direct the scope of many EO efforts. She also heads
up the non-profit side of EO.
Grassroots Promotion
Ryan Messick and Craig Howard at Slipknot Productions
have been key in getting the word out about EO shows in the Northwest
and at making them happen by presenting them from time to time.
www.slipknotproductions.com
Graphic Design and Webwork
Lang Schwartzwald is a talented artist in multiple
mediums and he’s also one hell of a graphic designer. The
task of making a poster that includes so many diverse artists is
a challenge and Lang puts up with the many changes and hurdles along
the way in an easygoing manner that is much appreciated. To see
more of Lang's work go to: www.ArtDezign.com
Sean Hankins provided his expertise for our website. Contact him at
The original EO logo was designed by Evana
Gerstman and Julie van Amerongen.
Living Tree Paper
Carolyn Moran and Bob Frankel at Living Tree Paper
have been providing tree free paper and printing support for our
event posters and paper needs. They are working to create change
in the pulp and paper industry; to offer one step on the path to
more sensible and sustainable use of resources in the production
of basic commodities. www.livingtreepaper.com
Everyone's Drumming
The people at Everyone's Drumming have offered their
support of our musical mission. They make incredible hand drums.
You can catch Matt playing his onstage with the Everyone Orchestra.
www.everyonesdrumming.com/
Want to be part of the Everyone team? Drop us an
email. Let us know
what your area of expertise is and we’ll try to plug you in.
Thanks for your support of The Everyone Orchestra.
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