The Open Ears festival presents…

"Recycle the City"
the 2003 Chime Making contest

This is an invitation from the Open Ears festival to unleash your mad inventor genius on downtown Kitchener as part of this year’s chime-making competition. All that is required to enter this competition is a home-made chime, constructed by yourself or your group of fellow mad-inventor geniuses, and a way to get the chimes to the KOR gallery by 4:00 on Wednesday, April 30.

This year's competition has a "recycle the city" theme. Entries to the contest should fit within the following guidelines:

1. The chimes need to make a noise!
2. The chimes must be made out of recycled local materials – junk from around the KW area or just around your house is what we’re looking for.
3. Strings, nuts, bolts, and other basic building materials which do not contribute to the actual sound of the chime do not have to be recycled (although we think it would be more fun if they were).
4. No dangerous materials, please - this is a public event! Chimes will be displayed in public and should not use broken glass, razors, metal with sharp edges, or other potentially injurious elements.
5. The chimes need a ring or hook at the top, to enable them to be hung for display purposes.

To enter, deliver your chimes to the KOR Gallery by 4:00pm on April 30th, where they will be judged by our panel of chime enthusiasts. The winning chime will be judged based on creativity and, most of all, the beauty of the sound. The four finalists will be put on display in the KOR Gallery for the rest of the festival, as part of our installation art series, and will also receive prizes.

Are you unsure how to proceed? No problem! We have Jesse Stewart, a Guelph-area percussionist, instrument builder and mad inventor genius on hand to help you. He’ll be leading a workshop on Saturday, April 26th at the KPL, as part of our series of April events at the Kitchener Public Library. For more information, call the KPL at 743-0271 x. 255, or look at the "KPL" page on this site.

If you have any further questions, you can call Open Ears at 745-4711 x. 291 or email info@openears.ca.