When we wrote you last, we told you the good news about the Tank receiving a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Tank is committed to the program that the NEA promised to fund. Called Connecting Colorado, it will bring University of Colorado artists from Boulder for residencies at the Tank and put Tank concerts into the Atlas B2 Center in Boulder.
But in January, the Trump Administration cut the funding for that award, made in 2024. That decision was rescinded, but the Tank must proceed with its plans in this moment, when little is certain.
We’re reaching out. Can you help?
In 2024 the TANK presented . . .
Eleven concerts, nine of them free of charge
71 days booked in the recording studio
Remote recording sessions from Europe and all over the country, even a remote live concert feed in Minneapolis
Weeklong residencies with the CCRMA program at Stanford, the B2 Black Box space at the University of Colorado, and the two-time Grammy-winning vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth
Not bad for an outfit in a rusty water tank in a remote rural town in Northwestern Colorado.
Who gets the credit?
You do, TANK donors.
With other gifts and grants and a healthier-than-ever level of earned income, all of us together produced this amazing season.
Let’s make it even better in 2025.
What’s the TANK?
The TANK is a unique arts organization in Rangely, Colorado, dedicated to a seven-story water tank that possesses an extraordinary acoustic resonance, a reverberation longer and richer than the Taj Mahal’s.
In 1976, sound artist Bruce Odland was shown the place by two Rangely residents and immediately knew that he had happened upon a treasure.
For years after Odland’s discovery, the TANK was a secret performance and recording space for a dedicated group of sound artists and musicians, as well as a beloved hangout for the town.
Today the TANK Center for Sonic Arts is a nonprofit arts organization, a recording studio and concert venue, a haven for the local community, and a one-of-a-kind destination for artists, sonic explorers and curious visitors, who learn to listen in a whole new way.
What Happens There?
The TANK’s recording program serves musicians, sonic artists and ordinary folks, coaches them in making their own music in the Tank, and gives them a professional quality recording of the results.
More basic and informal is the TANK’s free, Open Saturdays program, popular with Rangely folks, who come together to sing in the TANK, as featured in a 2016 CBS Sunday Morning segment about the place.
Each season the TANK produces two major ticketed concerts and a bunch of free concerts by visiting artists. It also produces offsite free concerts and events in the local assisted living center, the town park, the local schools and elsewhere.
The TANK embraces a wide community of artists and visitors from all over, who trek to Rangely to record and attend concerts. The TANK reaches folks nationally with its remote recording and presenting, its online offerings, and its new record label, Round Sound.
Donate here: https://tanksounds.org/donate/
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From the Western Slope to the Front Range, Colorado creatives sweat the future of arts funding
By Joshua Vorse (Josh is the Western Slope Multimedia Journalist for Rocky Mountain PBS.)
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — County Road 46 meanders around the northern edge of Rangely, curving next to the White River before bending toward the oil and gas infrastructure that’s a major part of the town’s identity.
One piece of industrial equipment — a decades-old, 75-foot-tall water tank — looks right at home on CR 46. But The Tank Center for Sonic Arts isn’t part of the oil and gas industry. It’s a renowned recording space for music and other performing arts with a one-of-a-kind reverb and echo that signer Cameron Beauchamp describes as the space collaborating with you.
“If I’m singing a long tone that would last 20 seconds, I can take a breath in the middle and you won’t notice it at all in the room, because the room carries your voice for so long,” he said.
His vocal ensemble, Roomful of Teeth, has recorded two projects at The Tank, and rely on thousands of dollars of National Endowment for the Arts money to create their art, year in and year out.
Artists and small endeavors like The Tank are concerned about the future, as many of their projects depend on NEA grants directly. The NEA was one of the many programs thrown into chaos during the Trump administration’s short-lived federal funding pause earlier this year. Future funding is uncertain.
President Donald Trump previously called to eliminate federal arts funding, and the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, has called NEA endowments “wasteful.”
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Go here to read more of Joshua’s article:
https://www.rmpbs.org/blogs/arts-culture/arts-federal-funding-colorado
Rocky Mountain PBS multimedia journalist Carly Rose contributed to this report.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
To read more about why you can trust the journalism of Rocky Mountain PBS, please visit our editorial standards and practices page.
https://www.rmpbs.org/about/best-practices
Photo: The Tank