COCHECTON, NY — It’s a two-person show featuring music, pictures and words inspired by moths.

Peter Kiesewalter, a Grammy-nominated musician based in Barryville, and violinist Whitney La Grange debut the “Moth Project” at 9 p.m. on Friday, August 12 at the Cochecton Pump House.

Visuals will be projected onto the musicians, who are standing in front of a 16-foot-by-nine-foot video screen, as they perform an eclectic mix of music, from Bach to Joni Mitchell to original songs.

When the pandemic hit New York City in March 2020, every freelance musician in the world panicked. “I had a year’s worth of touring lined up that was shut down,” said Kiesewalter, an Ottawa native, now based in Brooklyn.

Luckily for him, he received a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to develop the performance, which is being rolled out this summer with what he describes as “low-key” shows near his family cottage in Canada and near his upstate-NY farmhouse. (He bought the farmhouse pre-pandemic with his partner Whitney La Grange.)

“Seeing what was going on in the performing arts world, with this pall of uncertainty whether live performance would ever return to its pre-pandemic days, was life-changing for me,” Kiesewalter said. He needed to continue his work without being able to play at the venues of the past.

Hence “The Moth Project.”

“This show lives at the intersection of art and science—I’m hoping to bring it to venues that aren’t traditional performance spaces, like outdoor amphitheaters, libraries, museums.”

While the pandemic raged through the city and musicians were forced to stay home, the two musicians renovated their upstate property and turned a detached one-car garage into a living/work space. They did it by watching YouTube renovation videos and tackling as much of the work as they could themselves.

“As anxiety-inducing as the time off was,” Kiesewalter said, “we were grateful for the opportunity to slow down, take stock and dive into projects like the farmhouse renovation and the ‘Moth Project.’”

The rain date is Saturday, August 13.

Tickets cost $25, and can be purchased at cochectonpumphouse.com.

For more information about the performance, watch a presentation on YouTube at bit.ly/3Qnn3Cl.