EcoTones Concert

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EcoTones Concerts @ Little Creek Nature Area on May 10, 2025 at 10:00 am, co-sponsored by St. Louis Audubon’s Bring Conservation Home initiative, features an All-Ages ticketed musical event open to the public.  Little Creek Nature Area features a variety of flourishing ecosystems including a pond, forest, and a 40-year-old restored native prairie. From 10:00-11:00am, audiences members are invited to walk a “Music Trail” through multiple ecotones in the preserve, hearing small ensembles perform music directly inspired by the flora and fauna surrounding each trailside “stage.”  Naturalists from St. Louis Audubon’s Bring Conservation Home and the Missouri Prairie Foundation will also be stationed along the trail providing insights about the different ecotones.  The Music Trail portion of the event is immediately followed by a sit-down concert set at Little Creek Nature Area’s Pavilion at 11:30am featuring a convergence of all 14 members of the world-class St. Louis EcoTones Ensemble.  New music inspired by the prairie ecosystem, its superpower roots, specific native plants, pollinators, and local birds will be performed, including new original compositions and arrangements by five of the ensemble members including Bob Deboo, Danny Campbell, Thomas Jostlein, Alan Ferber, and Jody Redhage Ferber.  The newly crafted creative music of the EcoTones Ensemble strives to create a musical ecotones across classical music and jazz improvisation.  The performance features world-class St. Louis Region professional musicians from the SLSO as well as mainstay players on the regional & international jazz scene including Adam Maness (piano), Alan Ferber (trombone), Ann Choomack (flute), Aska Kaneko (violin), Bjorn Ranheim (cello), Bob Deboo (bass & composition), Danny Campbell (trumpet), Jody Redhage-Ferber (cello & compositions), Kaleb Kirby (drums), Kwanae Johnson (saxophones), Thomas Jöstlein (alphorn, French horn), Tod Bowermaster (alphorn, French horn), Tricia Jöstlein (alphorn, French horn), and Vince Varvel (guitar).

A limited amount of picnic table bench seating will be available for the full-length concert set at 11:30am, but audience members should plan to BYO-Everything: camp chairs, food and drink. Audience members embarking on the Music Trail portion of the event should wear appropriate footwear.  In the event of rain, portions of the event will be moved under cover within Little Creek Nature Area.  Please visit www.ecotonesconcerts.org for Pay-What-You Want tickets and for more information. A limited number of free tickets are available on a first-come-first-serve basis by emailing ecotonesconcerts@gmail.com, and are intended for people for whom a Pay What You Want ticket purchase is not possible.

Special thanks to our season nonprofit sponsor St. Louis Audubon Society’s Bring Conservation Home Initiative, as well as our event sponsors Jackson Pianos, Knilling Strings, The Missouri Prairie Foundation, a program support grant from the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, Top Notch Violins, and generous private donations. We are grateful to these entities for making this innovative live music event a reality! 

EcoTones Concerts @ Little Creek Nature Area

Saturday, May 10, 2025 at 10:00 am

2295 Dunn Rd.

Florissant, MO 63033

Tickets at www.ecotonesconcerts.org

EcoTones Concerts presents imaginative outdoor performances sited in local public nature spaces, inviting and exploring connections between humans and the natural world.  Inspired by the term ‘ecotone’ from ecology, a transition zone between two biomes that is particularly rife with life, EcoTones Concerts present music in a stylistic ecotone between classical chamber music and jazz improvisation, and further an eco-social worldview of interrelatedness between humans, flora and fauna.  

EcoTones founder & director Jody Redhage Ferber has performed on five continents in venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Radio City Music Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, Disney Hall (L.A.), Chicago Symphony Hall, the Barbican (London), Lollapalooza, and Austin City Limits; at the Montreal, Montreux, & North Sea Jazz Festivals, Tokyo’s Blue Note Jazz Club, the Village Vanguard, on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series and with pop icons Neil Diamond, Sufjan Stevens, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Meatloaf, the Roots, Clay Aiken, Enya, Duncan Sheik, Chromeo, and Sara Bareilles.  She works as a recording session cellist for an array of artists and has recorded for Sesame Street.  You can read more about her work as a cellist, composer, and presenter at www.jodyredhageferber.com.