Live Music Meets Skiing at 'Noise Ordinance!'—Six Tour Stops Announced

There’s no doubt that music is an important part of skiing.

Some folks are religious about rocking one earbud and their favorite ski playlist while out on the hill. Others can’t wait to get their hands on the next piece of Grateful Dead ski gear. When it comes to films, the song is just as important as the visuals, and can bring a two-dimensional experience to life. 

There was more to it than just enhancing the experience when Mallory Duncan and Xander Guldman teamed up to create Noise Ordinance!, a tour featuring films accompanied by a live score.

Each tour stop will show Duncan’s newest film, Lines, with accompaniment from musician Chima the Stubborn. Guldman’s new film, Form, will be accompanied by his brother Jordan’s jazz band.

Tour stops will also show Stratton Matteson’s new film Sierra to Baker, Sean Malloy & Noah Casey’s film That Wind Still Blows, and will feature music by Trinity Jane and the Malitones.

Keep reading for more on Noise Ordinance!. Tour dates can be found at the bottom of the article.

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Duncan, who is a musician himself, and has made and skied in award-winning films like The Blackcountry Journal, knew early in the filmmaking process that he wanted to explore using live music. “I knew I wanted to tell a story about lyricism and skiing with a focus on hip hop,” said Duncan, who has always wanted his films to appeal to people outside of skiing, as well as in it.

Duncan grew up playing saxophone and is almost always listening to music on the skin track. His two lifelong passions have always inspired and influenced one another, and combining the two felt natural.

Guldman, on the other hand, found music through his brother Jordan, who started playing the trumpet in middle school and integrated jazz into their family from that point on.

When Guldman started to question his relationship to skiing in college, his brother’s growth as a musician showed him a new approach to his passion and a way to develop a sense of self through it. “I watched my sibling develop their sense of self through music, and I drew inspiration from their approach. At times, the homogeneity of the ski world can be stifling, and Jordan helped me step back and reframe skiing as a way to understand myself and to find joy in that exploration,” said Guldman.

Duncan’s film, The Blackcountry Journal, was an important point of inspiration for Guldman as he came up with Form. Neither Guldman nor Duncan recalls a specific moment when they realized that they’d both been thinking about live scoring their films, but deciding to tour them together was an integral piece of the creative process for both.

Hearing how Guldman and his brother had teamed up helped Duncan to realize the potential in his own project, and ultimately, how to add an element that had previously felt untold to the piece.

Duncan and Guldman aren’t the first to explore the connection between skiing and music, but their approach to bringing it to others is certainly unique. However, for both creatives, live scoring their films is about more than just a multi-dimensional viewing experience.

“The small moments of imperfection and spontaneity that we experience while taking a lap are brought to life by a musician interpreting that moment in real time. We have a tendency to focus on the highs within skiing, but the emotions that I feel on snow are far more varied,” says Guldman. “The range offered by live music helps tap into that nuanced experience that we all love.”

For Duncan, it’s as much about what you’re seeing on screen as what you’re hearing. Live music is free, more improvisational, and imperfect.

“I hope audiences are inspired to view skiing in the same way they view music—multifaceted, wide-ranging, and visceral,” says Duncan. “I hope that through this experience, people begin to view this sport as a vessel for amplifying their values, passions and uniqueness, no matter how far-reaching or obscure they are in relation to skiing.”

Noise Ordinance! kicks off in Salt Lake City on November 5, 2025, with a free show at Fisher Brewing in collaboration with 4FRNT Skis.

Subsequent stops will be in Hood River, OR (November 11), Portland, OR (November 12), Seattle, WA (November 14), Truckee, CA (November 16), and New York City (December 9).