Donald Knaack, "The Junkman"
Donald Knaack travels to the beat of a different drummer. A conservatory-trained percussionist
and composer, The Junkman is equally passionate about the environment and art, making his music on 100% recycled materials.
Companion Star and Knaack are working together on a new hybrid opera, Odin, to be premiered in
2014. The artistic goal of Odin is to meld traditional opera with modern street culture, complete with an orchestra of 11 percussionists
performing on amplified recycled materials. The purpose is cross-cultural and artistic exchange and blending. It will contain hip-hop arias
and dance quartets. As with all of Companion Star's projects, Odin's development is completely collaborative, improvisational and
workshop-based.
Knaack's Junk Music™ is a unique collection of infectious grooves and musical styles that
criss-crosses genres, is impossible to categorize, and has him performing with Ice T, Eminem and Lemonwheel, composing for Twyla Tharpe,
and appearing at The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the Kansas City International Jazz Festival, the Seoul Drum Festival and the United
Nations. He has been featured on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, and in the Associated Press, and Billboard
Magazine.
Knaack's school program, entitled HOP (Help Our Planet), was awarded the 2008 Vermont Governor's
Award for Environmental Excellence. He was previously nominated for a Grammy in 1999 for his CD Junk Music.
For more on The Junkman, visit
www.junkmusic.org.
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