In 2013, Hugh will launch a culinary and musical tour of the roots of modern California: the 21 Spanish colonial Catholic Missions that wend their way from Baja California to Sonoma, each a day's horseback ride from the previous. At each mission, a performance and sound installation spectacle will be presented, along with a celebration of the region's food, wine and olive oils. The tour will focus on the design, the landscape, the history, and the intersection of the Spanish occupiers and Native Americans. One extraordinary legacy of the missions is the preservation of musical sources. As musicmaking was intrinsic to the lives of the First Peoples, mission music directors invited them into the church through the vehicle of singing, drumming and flutes. The Spanish created hybrid musics that drew the traditional local melodies into the sphere of the unified Church chant. As it happens, many manuscripts are still extant. I am interested from a musicological perspective in extracting the original sources, in pulling apart the fusion that was created in the name of spiritual and cultural conquest. Each mission will have its own unique voices deriving from the traditions that were obliterated in that region, and perhaps the musical scores that remain are the sole chance to revive that voice.

Each mission is also a unique biome of bird life, ocean or river, and whistling wind. These sound sources will be melded with the musical sources to create a composition with live performers and an immersive sound installation that the audience can explore. Afterwards, the tour group will retire to tables under the olive trees for a repast of wines and food that have emerged as the rich legacy of the colonization of this fertile ground. The tour will be organized by Journeys in Wine.