The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem extends an invitation

Musicians now have the opportunity to perform at the Peabody Essex Museums Prize Party and Festival from May 21-22. The museum is holding an open call and offers a $500-1,000 honorarium. The community event will celebrate “the cultural vitality of the North Shore and Greater Boston area and is inspired by the installation and performance artwork of PEM Prize recipient, Carlos Garaicoa.” PEM is seeking 30 performers, “from bucket drummers to beatboxers and classically trained cellists,” and the application deadline is March 15. Learn more at: pem.org/pemprize.

PEM has offered some background about Garaicoa and his work:

“In his groundbreaking multisensory installation Partitura, Carlos Garaicoa celebrates our potential to create a powerful unity out of the great diversity of our communities. This installation, which was on view at PEM from 2020-22, imagined a new kind of orchestra — made up of 40 individual recordings of street musicians from Madrid and Bilbao, Spain. The musicians brought the sounds of their city into the museum and with them a unique sense of place and unexpected joy. Garaicoa worked with composer Estaban Puebla to produce a composition that stitched together this extraordinary range of performances with musicians who vary in cultural background, skill level and music tradition. The first-ever PEM Prize looks to honor artists working at the intersection of creativity and civic engagement.”