In November 2017, the City of Kansas City, Missouri, became a member of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and was designated as the first and only Creative City of Music in the U.S.
Creative City KC Inc. is a nonprofit 501 (c)(3) organization that was created to secure and sustain Kansas City’s designation in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.
To celebrate Kansas City as a City of Music, the Kansas City Museum partners with Creative City KC to develop ongoing programs, projects, and community engagement. One of their new initiatives is the Skyspace Sessions, launching this year in collaboration with 1900 Building, A Karbank Project.
In 2022, the Kansas City Museum publicly announced that it is working with artist James Turrell to create a Skyspace on the Kansas City Museum property. The Skyspace is being acoustically designed for music performances. The Museum will present live performances and recorded music including music that is composed specifically for the Skyspace.
The Skyspace Sessions will be a series of high-quality audio recordings of songs, instrumental tracks, and soundscapes that will be archived and experienced in the future Kansas City Museum Skyspace. The recordings will take place in 1900 Building’s Rose Hall, designed especially for performances. Rose Hall has an audiophile-quality sound system, including McIntosh stereo and surround-sound equipment and Sonus Faber speakers.
The Skyspace Sessions are intended to feature musicians from: Kansas City, other UNESCO Cities of Music around the world, and cities that have Turrell Skyspaces. There are more than 85 Skyspaces in the world. Kansas City Museum’s Skyspace will be the first in Missouri or Kansas and aims to be a connector for musical and cultural exchanges.