The musicians with which Iris Collective works are “more than just wonderful players,” says executive director Rebecca Arendt. “We really look for artists that are doing meaningful work in the communities that they’re working in.”
Iris’ upcoming collaboration with Vijay Gupta is a perfect example. A violinist, Gupta founded Street Symphony, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that brings music to neighbors recovering from addiction, homelessness, and incarceration through performances, workshops, and new songs. This Saturday, he’ll make his debut with Iris Collective, bridging the classical and the contemporary with Beethoven’s Septet, Reena Esmail’s Movement from Darshan, and J.S. Bach’s Partita, interwoven with György Kurtág’s Signs, Games and Messages.
Yet this concert won’t be the only item on Gupta’s agenda during his stay in Memphis. “When we bring in guest artists, we don’t bring them in just for performance,” Arendt says. “We bring them in for a residency, so they’re doing work within the Memphis community.”
Gupta, for his part, will lead a masterclass with the music students of University of Memphis on Wednesday, and later that evening, he’ll join a community roundtable moderated by Rachel Knox of the Hyde Family Foundation and featuring DeMarcus Suggs, the city’s director of creative and cultural economy; Kelcey Johnson, executive director of Hospitality Hub; and Kevin Farrell from Alpha Omega Veteran Services. The discussion, Arendt says, will focus on how “art organizations and community service organizations and those that are interested can create places of belonging, and opportunities of belonging and creativity, for those that are experiencing homelessness and are in our community.”
On Friday, in partnership with Hospitality Hub, Gupta and the Iris musicians will participate in a “soup kitchen” performance at First Presbyterian Church for those experiencing homelessness. “Not only will it be a moment of beauty and relaxation, but it’ll be a chance for us to talk directly with people to say, ‘Do you like it? What would you want to see differently?’ So we can hear directly from the people that we want to serve.”
This feedback, Arendt adds, is integral to Iris’ mission as they seek to expand the work they’ve begun with Hospitality Hub over the summer. “Iris musicians really are intentional to make sure that they listen first,” she says. “People are people and music is a wonderful way to connect. [Someone’s] experience with housing insecurity is just a little piece of them, and so music is a really wonderful way to sort of break down all of those labels we put on each other just to get to what we all have in common.”
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit iriscollective.org.
Community Dialogue on Artistic Partnerships and Unhoused Neighbor Support, Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library, 3030 Poplar Avenue, Wednesday, January 28, 2-3:30 p.m., free.
Vijay Gupta: On Stage with Iris Collective, Germantown Performing Arts Center, 1801 Exeter Road, Germantown, Thursday, January 29, 7 p.m., $62/seat.