FREE
Registration: Click here to register online.
“KLASSROOM: Seeing Sounds”
Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People with synesthesia may experience colors when listening to music, see shapes when smelling certain scents, or perceive tastes when looking at words.
-Wikipedia
Join multidisciplinary artist-in-residence Kellen “Klassik” Abston, a self-described Black Pastoral Sonic Landscape Painter, in a guided exploration of the synesthetic relationship between art and nature through the lens of musical composition and collaborative songwriting. Each session begins with a walking tour where participants will be invited to capture elements of interest on the Lynden grounds utilizing photo, video, sound recordings, and to write notes to document what they observe. After the walk, the group will convene inside, where Klassik’s music production rig will transform the sunroom into a satellite songwriting studio. Attendees will share their findings with Klassik who, working live, will transform them into a soundscape. Once this musical framework is produced, the group will work collaboratively to write a chorus and verse(s), pulling words, phrases, and ideas in response to the natural phenomenon documented and shared.
Participants are encouraged to bring phones, cameras, journals, field recorders, etc. – anything they feel will best allow them to document the grounds on the walking tour. Dress for the weather and walking. There will be someone on hand to assist in sharing media.
The work produced during these public sessions will be shared in a culminating performance by Klassik on November 5, 2025 in the Lynden gallery. Klassik will also share selected works from his own catalog.
Klassroom and the gallery performance are part of Abston’s artist-in-residence project at Lynden: the development of an audio/video installation concept titled THE ARK
About the Artist
Kellen “Klassik” Abston, a self-described “Black Pastoral Sonic Landscape Painter,” is an award-winning Milwaukee-born-and-based musician, producer, songwriter, performing artist, and community curator. Named the City of Milwaukee's 2021 Mildred L. Harpole Artist of the Year, Klassik's jazz-saturated hip-hop/soul, informed by years of traditional jazz study and Milwaukee Public Schools arts education, has taken him from summer festival stages and crowds of thousands, to classroom settings inspiring youth of all ages throughout Wisconsin. His 2019 LP, QUIET, was named the #1 album of the year by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and was awarded Critic's Choice and Solo Artist honors at the 2019 Radio Milwaukee Music Awards. 2022 saw Klassik collaborating with both the Milwaukee Art Museum, producing the original composition and video performance Nobody's Watching, and Milwaukee Chamber Theatre, producing and performing an all-original score for their production of Brian Quijada’s Where Did We Sit on the Bus? In 2024, he again reprised the role of music director and performer with MCT for the season-opening retelling of Homer’s epic Iliad with An Iliad. A true "Klass Act,” Klassik works to stir the souls of listeners into action with empathy, passion, and purpose through his own vulnerable and self-reflective sonic art.
