SCADshow Presents: William Close & The Earth Harp Collective
Category: Event Calendar
Date and Time
- Thursday, Dec 18, 2025 7pm - 8pm
Location
SCADshow
1470 Spring St NW
Details
“William Close is redesigning the music experience — creating new architectural musical instruments that put the audience inside the instrument!”
William Close is an installation artist, musician, and visionary who has developed over one hundred new musical instruments — including the famed Earth Harp. Close is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Earth Harp Collective, an internationally acclaimed ensemble of musicians and artists who bring his visionary instruments to life around the world.
The body of the Earth Harp rests on the stage while its strings extend over the audience, reaching up to 1,000 feet in length and attaching to the back of the venue. Each performance transforms the space itself into a resonant musical instrument, immersing the audience inside the sound.
The Earth Harp earned William a finalist spot on NBC’s America’s Got Talent and was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as “the world’s longest playable stringed instrument.”
A graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, Close studied sculpture and sound design. His work explores the connection between architecture and music — inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s idea that “Music is liquid architecture; architecture is frozen music.”
The Earth Harp has been featured in iconic locations worldwide, including The Colosseum in Rome, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, The Seattle Space Needle, The temples of Vietnam, Brazil’s Theatro Municipal in São Paulo and The Grand Theater of the Shanghai International Arts Festival. It has also appeared at major U.S. festivals such as Coachella, Bumbershoot, Burning Man, and Lightning in a Bottle. Join us at SCADshow to celebrate the magic of the season! Enjoy a festive evening featuring beloved holiday classics, original compositions, and well-known hit songs—making it the perfect celebration for couples, families, and audiences of all ages.
Tickets are $45 for the general public, $30 for seniors, military, and alumni, and $25 for SCAD cardholders (students, faculty, and staff). For more information on the performance or questions about tickets, please email scadshow@scad.edu.
