Garden Music | A Living Portrait of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden
Now live via Walker Art Center’s Twin Cities Sounds Project
I'm honored to share a new sound work titled "Garden Music", commissioned by the Walker Art Center for their newly launched Twin Cities Sound series, curated by the ever-thoughtful John Marks.
This is a meaningful piece for me—rooted in both literal soil and my ongoing commitment to exploring our relationship with place through sound. Garden Music was created specifically in response to the re-wilded North End of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The piece continues the botanical thread of my earlier album Yucca Music, inviting listeners into the quiet life of plants, pollinators, and the land itself.
This is an exclusive release available only through the Walker Art Center as part of their interactive sound + location map. The full experience pairs each composition with a specific point on the map, encouraging listening in place, and inviting you to move through the city in a new, more attentive way.
About the Piece
Garden Music began with a single blooming White Heath Aster, one of the last flowers to emerge in late-season pollinator gardens. I captured its live, bio-electrical frequencies using plant-to-synth technology, then layered them with the rustling textures of dry autumn grasses and faint insect motion, creating a subtle, meditative sound field that breathes with the land.
This work belongs to a larger personal practice that sees plants as collaborators.
Featuring Local Voices
This project is part of a collection of new work by Minnesota-based sound artists including:
Alex Bissen
Nikki Pfeifer
Dameun Strange
Mary Hanson Scott
Each piece offers a different perspective on place, shaped by local connection and personal experience.
🎧 Listen to the full project + explore the interactive map via Walker Reader here.
🗺️ Commissioned by: Walker Art Center
📝 Curated by: John William Marks
For more plant music, explore my albums Yucca Music, or Green Green Earth.
With gratitude,
- Matthew Hiram
