Musical Interludes featuring Julie Patchouli "Landscape of Guitar" - Thursday, January 28, 2027 5:30PM

Julie Patchouli performs The Landscape of Guitar: Animated Painting Concert Experience 

Julie Patchouli has been a professional touring singer-songwriter multi-instrumentalist since age 18. She has, with her husband and master guitarist Bruce Hecksel, performed over 5,000 concerts around the world in a 30 year career as the #1 Charting International Guitar folk duo Patchouli & Terra Guitarra. 

They met thru music in Chicago in early ‘90s, joined a band (Aunt Betsy) in Olympia, WA, returned to Chicago in 1996, married, started playing as the duo Bruce & Julie, renamed Patchouli in 1999. Their first shows were in folk clubs, and college campuses and quickly expanded to venues around the U. S.   In 2007 they created a second musical project, Terra Guitarra that took off on the international scene. Four of Terra Guitarra albums were nominated for ZMR “Best Instrumental Album of the Year.” Their album Of Sea & Stars won that award in 2017. The folk power couple joyfully crafted their sound of folk meets Flamenco that City Pages described like “taking a yoga class in a field of running mustangs” with poetic lyrics, sparkling vocals, rhythmic steel strings and soulful Spanish guitar creating songs that “inspire the human spirit” -Chicago Tribune.

Through the years, in the background of their thriving musical lives, Bruce was also painting and many of his pieces became album artwork. In 2015 they created a multi-media production, The Landscape of Guitar, The Animated Painting Concert Experience, a live music performance with projected animation of Bruce’s original acrylic paintings of guitar shaped scenes that creates a vivid symphony of frequency, color and sound. 

Patchouli & Terra Guitarra presented this show at MICFA in 2020 during the pandemic closing of the art center, performing a live stream from our gallery.  In 2024, Bruce had the original Landscape of Guitar paintings on exhibit in the gallery complimenting their performance of the live animation concert.  

Sadly, in July 2025 after a three year battle with stage IV cancer, Bruce suffered a stroke and passed away. Patchouli was working on their 23rd recording together when Bruce died. Julie went back into the studio in winter to finish the album and released “Everything It Takes” in April 2026.  

Julie will be performing this special concert of The Landscape of Guitar, playing fan favorite songs and sharing the new album release “Everything it Takes”.