
Imogen Heap
Photo: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images
Inside Imogen Heap's Interactive 'Creative Passport' Project & Mycelia World Tour
Fans of multi-instrumentalist songwriter/producer and multi-media artist Imogen Heap have learned to expect the unexpected from their hero. Never one to disappoint creatively, Heap's latest endeavor is also one of her most ambitious.
The GRAMMY winner has announced a nine-city North American leg of her Mycelia World Tour, complete with the launch of a new project, 'Creative Passport,' which integrates concerts, workshops and discussions to push the typical limits of what a live tour can mean.
The continuation of her Mycelia World Tour follows successful stints across Europe during 2018 and will make stops in major U.S. cities between April and June 2019, including Miami, New York, Chicago, Toronto, Seattle and San Francisco. The tour is named after Heap's research and development hub aimed at cultivating a fairer payment system for artists by establishing a music maker database.
Billed in a statement from Heap as "promoting a fair and flourishing future for the Music Industry," her 'Creative Passport' project is geared toward, "realising a vision of the future which sees music makers connected through a verified and decentralised ecosystem, promoting artist-led, fair and sustainable operating practices."
The slate of events for each tour stop includes some or all of several elements, including solo concerts from Heap as well as reunited duo appearances with Guy Sigsworth as electronic duo Frou Frou for the first time since 2003.
'Creative Passport' also offers workshops with local music makers, technologists and industry influencers, workshops for families where children will get to build and code their own MIni.MU gloves (Heap's proprietary electronic instrument of the future) and talks given by Heap on "technologies which are positively shaping the future of the music ecosystem, building better business and audience relations with music makers."
“For years now we’ve been complaining about the state of the music industry and how it has been held back by old ways of thinking, negatively impacting music makers–a major pain point being that we are the first to put in any of the work, and the last to see any financial reward or even payment," explains Heap. "Through Mycelia and its ‘Creative Passport,’ as music makers we now have no excuse but to put our best foot forward and become open for business, decentralising the ecosystem so that it will ultimately benefit everyone. I am excited to be going on the road to bring this to life, in addition to showcasing other new technologies which will add to transforming the music industry into a fair, flourishing and vibrant place”.
Heap released her debut album, iMegaphone, back in 1998 and has spent the past two decades surprising her fans with her classically trained yet wildly innovative interpolations of pop music. While her work has always pushed the boundaries between music and visual media, her sounds reached her widest audience yet as a producer on Taylor Swift's GRAMMY-winning album 1989, which earned Heap her second career GRAMMY Award.
Tickets for Heap's North American dates of her Mycelia World Tour go on-sale to the general public on Friday, Dec. 14 at 10:00 a.m. For full details, visit her website.