Meet Abby Temple and Hollyn Slykhuis | Chroma Collective, Co-Founders

We had the good fortune of connecting with Abby Temple and Hollyn Slykhuis and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Abby & Hollyn, what inspires you?
It’s a special thing to be involved in the process of creating new music. We are incredibly inspired by the composers we work with, and it’s a great feeling to support other artists as a core part of our mission as the Chroma Collective. With the pieces we commission, we’re able to give them multiple performances to a wide range of audiences, from young toddlers, to college students, to residents in nursing homes. Through the mediums of painting or drawing, our audience is able to access these new musical compositions in a way that can immediately resonate with them. Creativity belongs to everyone, not just the people on the stage! We are consistently inspired by the audience’s artwork, the ideas they bring to life, and the integrated communal experience we share.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Our ensemble combines music and art in a way that is engaging and fun for our audiences. We promote historically marginalized composers in our performances, and we design our program so that audience members find the artist within themselves. Our vision is to foster respect among artists* by modeling respect between audience and performer and championing inclusivity (*If you are a human you are an artist). This includes practicing creativity and vulnerability as we explore art and music together. We have commissioned music from several outstanding composers and worked with a wide variety of audiences, often painting as we play, and we are so thrilled to be doing something we love with people that we love. We started as a trumpet duo, and recently expanded to include a third member, Erin Henke, who is both a soprano and pianist. Chroma Collective was born when we were both in graduate school, and we always knew it was something we wanted to take with us after graduation. From the start, we have taken ourselves seriously. We established our mission and vision, and they have guided us from step one. Everything we do in an engagement (our preferred word to “concert”) is directly related to our mission, from the music we play, to the activities we facilitate, to the materials the audience works with. We knew we wanted to get to a place where we could pay ourselves and the composers writing for us, because as freelancing musicians that is often something you have to really advocate for. We are proud that compensation is part of our model. We’ve also been setting time aside on our calendars specifically for “Chroma meetings” since the very beginning, which sometimes is time where we co-work, sometimes a brainstorming session, sometimes meeting with our advisors, but always using our time to keep moving forward. It’s really helped us keep our momentum now that we are out of school. One of the things we are most proud of is how we have changed the definition of going to a “performance.” Our audience is an integral part of the experience, because they are making art while we play music, and we respond to that art in our music making. They are not passive observers, but active participants in the artistic process. It’s amazing to see people embrace the creative expression that we try to encourage, and it creates a beautiful atmosphere to experience. We hope our audiences walk away feeling inspired and empowered.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
We’d like to shoutout two mentors without whom we never would have started this project: Ashley Hall and Andy Kozar. Ashley’s coaching encouraged us to identify what we were really passionate about, and sparked the initial idea- and courage- to initiate this group. Andy has been so instrumental in getting things off the ground, and he’s always willing to share his insight in an honest and encouraging way. We owe so much to both of them, and we’re so thankful they have been and still are such fantastic mentors to us individually and to this Collective.

Website: https://www.chromacollective.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chroma_collective_/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/chroma_collect

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087102866562

Youtube: https://youtu.be/Ay9qSEIpCro

Image Credits
Hannan Du