Amos Cochran said that he’s “taken a lot of time to think more than do” in approaching his first performance in more than a year.

The Emmy-nominated composer challenged himself with what will be his first truly solo performance when he sits down to the piano on Oct. 4 during the Music on the Mountain Series at Mount Sequoyah.

“When I have other people playing with me I have found, in the best way, I sort of hide behind them,” he said, whether those collaborators are a string quartet or his frequent collaborator, cellist Christian Serrano-Torres.

This time, he said that he’s found a way to blur the boundaries of traditional musical performance using the space in Millar Lodge, a grand piano and synthesizers.

“So much of my work revolves around the context that the work is being experienced,” Cochran said. “I’m always trying to create work that gives people a space and time to really just be present with themselves and the atmosphere that’s created.”

The performance will also integrate excerpts by favorite writers like James Baldwin and poet David Whyte.

“I’ve had a long, interesting relationship with words and lyrics, and they’re really not what I have gravitated towards, but there’s a lot of [Whyte’s] poetry and his philosophical talks and explanations of his ideas that have really resonated with me pretty hard in the last couple of months,” Cochran said.

At the end of his hour-long performance, he hopes people feel, “to some extent, like they’ve slipped in and out of dream,” he said. If all goes well, he may perform solo more often.

“I want to perform more. And if I have a show that is just a solo show, it’s much easier for me to take that on the road,” Cochran said, but he’s not planning too many shows. “I grew up playing in bands in Fayetteville, and we learned the hard way that over-saturation is the death of attendance.”

Cochran started playing bass in his youth, then picked up piano in college. However, to this day, he maintains that he plays his songs on piano rather than referring to himself as a piano player.

He’s recently had spots playing in the Fort Smith Symphony’s Perspective series. His previous work has been showcased at the Sundance, Berlin and Toronto Film Festivals, and he’s currently up for a mid-American Emmy for his score for the Arkansas PBS show “Mystery League.”

“So much of the film scoring I’ve done, there’s a keyboard in front of me,” Cochran said. “Oftentimes that keyboard is making a cello or a violin or a clarinet sound, but nonetheless, it’s a keyboard that’s in front of me.”

Instead, he finds himself drawn to the sound and space that comes from an acoustic piano. He insists that each one is unique.

“It sounds sort of corny, but I feel like every piano is like meeting a new friend,” he said. “Every one is different. The way things work on them are different, the quirky and almost wrong sounds that come out from the mechanics and pedals — they’re all different. When you’re playing a keyboard, it’s all as the same as it can be.”

After playing the grand piano and other keyboards for his Oct. 6 show, he is planning an acoustic show at the Folk School of Fayetteville this December. He’ll also have two sound pieces traveling to the ICOSA Gallery in Austin, Texas, later in the month.

Never a fan of creating the same experience twice, Cochran has also found a new way to use his Arcade Now project, his experimental music series, to give artists a better time on social media.

His previous work, N.I. (Natural Intelligence) was inspired by pop-up ads and doom scrolling. The large-scale sound and art installation was projected onto the tower at The Momentary last year and explored living in a constant state of interruption, according to his artist’s statement.

Now he’s found a way to use that format meant to interrupt us, to instead discuss what life is like for creatives with his ArcadeNowConversations on social media.

“I’ve landed on the idea in the last couple of months, that conversation almost feels like a new type of currency out in the world,” he said considering the plethora of podcasts and clips vying for our ever-shrinking attention spans.

“I think so often when we have conversations [where] we talk about all the accolades. We talk about all the cool stuff. We talk about all the upcoming neatness,” he said, but an upcoming concert or a new album isn’t the sum total of an artist’s life and career. “So often we’re living in a different head space that [includes] much more uncertainty.”

Currently, Cochran drops a reel from his former interviews with Arcade Now artists every Monday at noon. Every other Sunday at 7 p.m., he said, he’ll post a new interview with a creative that explores the many facets of life as an artist.

“I hope over time, it becomes it becomes a space that has little bits of insights into what it means to be an artist, and it feels like a diverse look at what that can be for people.”

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FAQ

Music on the Mountain: Amos Cochran

WHAT — Emmy nominated-composer, musician and sound artist Amos Cochran will present his first ever solo show in a sold out performance.

WHEN — 6 p.m. Oct. 4

WHERE — Millar Lodge at Mount Sequoyah

INFO — mountsequoyah.org; amoscochran.com

BONUS — ArcadeNowConversations, clips from Cochran’s coversations with creatives, are available on the Arcade Now Instagram page. New reels drop every Monday at noon and a new conversation is posted every other Sunday at 7 p.m.