Ben Cosgrove: Landscape as Inspiration for Songwriting
Wrinkles in the Map by The Ivan Doig Center
Episode notes
This episode features Ben Cosgrove, the composer of Wrinkles in the Map's theme music. Ben is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work explores the intersection of sound and place. He's drawn to landscapes that aren’t traditionally grandiose and majestic but rather opaque and mysterious–the shadows lurking around a corner, the uneasy way the light falls on a hillside while a storm blows the grass sideways, the ever-changing sand spits of a coastline. It’s here, in these places that resist easy definition, where we are sometimes most attuned and present to the world around us–and to the interior landscapes of our experience of it. In this conversation, we talk about the power of music to say things that words perhaps cannot, the power of witnessing new places as integral to the creative process, and why his songs don’t have lyrics ...