Experience a unique live performance of Balmorhea - The Wind

Experience a unique live performance of The Wind from Donald Judd’s Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas

A stunning blend of ambient Americana and contemporary classical, Balmorhea’s Deutsche Grammophon debut album The Wind garnered rave reviews on its release last year. Now the Texas-based duo of Rob Lowe and Michael A. Muller have teamed up with award-winning film-maker and Amazon Music Creative Director Jared Hogan to film a unique live performance of the album at the Chinati Foundation, in the desert town of Marfa, Texas. The Wind – Live in Marfa will be issued by Deutsche Grammophon today.

The Chinati Foundation is a pioneering museum created by artist Donald Judd, whose belief that art was inextricably linked to the surrounding landscape chimes with the meditations on the natural world that inspired the writing of The Wind. Joined by fellow musicians Aisha Burns, Clarice Jensen and Rob Mazurek, Balmorhea’s Lowe and Muller performed the album over the course of a day in the huge space of the Arena, one of Chinati’s large-scale installations – a former army base gymnasium acquired by Judd in the 1980s. The musicians invite viewers to experience the album as a 12-chapter narrative unfolding from morning to dusk within this one-of-its-kind location, which demonstrates the importance of place in musical performance.

As the Arena’s roof contracts and expands with changes in temperature and wind pattern, it creates varying levels and types of noise, adding its own voice of metallic creaks and shudders to the sparse beauty of Balmorhea’s music. Jared Hogan, known for his projects with artists such as Muse, Girl in Red and Joji, brings his own pared-down vision to The Wind, contributing further layers of atmosphere with his shots of other parts of the sprawling museum and the vast skies, natural landscape and distant horizons of West Texas, as well as capturing every detail of the performers’ work.

An expanded digital edition of Balmorhea’s album, The Wind – Deluxe, was released on 7 October. As well as featuring four previously unreleased tracks from the original sessions, it includes remixes and reworks by Joseph Shabason, Portico Quartet and Christian Badzura (with Scoring Berlin).