February 10, 2022
6:00pm MST
Sturm Auditorium, Freyer-Newman Center, Denver Botanic Gardens
General Admission Tickets - $20
In this Playground Ensemble concert centered around the environment, we perform new music that points to the fragility and resilience of Earth and of ourselves. How can we contain both the grief of forest fires and the hopeful work of climate recovery?
Featuring contributions from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, we are excited to present beautiful and resonant compositions using bones from Antarctica as instruments; a work that calls out the plight of deforestation; and a work connecting our region's wind patterns to drum beats.
Funding for this program was provided by Denver Arts & Venues through the Denver Music Advancement Fund.
THE PROGRAM
Interludes presented by Scott Landolt, Project Scientist at National Center for Atmospheric Research
For the Trees (2019) by Jeff Nytch
In the summer of 2019 I made a pilgrimage of sorts...to visit a tree. "Big Lonely Doug" is a Douglas Fir on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, that is at least 1,000 years old. He also lives in a region of the world where trees like him are regularly mowed down by clear-cut logging. More or less by a fluke, Doug was spared when the loggers came through his grove, leaving him standing tall in the midst of a massive clear-cut.
I have long been a "tree-hugger." I grew up in the woods, and I have always felt a sacred connection to trees and the forest. For years I've wondered about how to address the crisis of deforestation of old growth forests through my music, but I didn't see how until I met Big Lonely Doug: then I knew.
The intent of this piece is to immerse the audience in the world of trees, to experience the forest from Big Lonely Doug's perspective: the loneliness of life today, recalling the joy of growing and living in the centuries before Westerners showed up and started cutting down the massive forests of Vancouver Island--and the terror that rained down when they did. But beyond these things, I want this piece to motivate action. If the audience leaves feeling only despair and hopelessness, I'll have failed. I invite you to find ways that you can be involved in ending the self-inflicted injury we are doing to ourselves and our planet.
Featuring:
Sarah Whitnah, Violin
Michiko Theurer, Violin
Ash Mach, Viola
David Short, Cello
Chinook (2011) by Nathan Hall (b. 1982)
‘Chinook’ is a percussion quartet and a sonic representation of the Chinook (or ‘snow eater’) wind patterns near Boulder, Colorado. A Chinook event is usually about one hour long, where temperature drops rapidly, winds pick up, and the barometer falls. It seems to storm and then usually dissipates as quickly as it arose. In this piece, the percussionists ‘play’ these patterns of wind speed and pressure through changing rhythms and pitches. The ensemble is limited to non-pitched instruments (mostly wood and stone materials). Each player progressively moves from high to low pitched instruments, proportionately over time–(in this case, one hour is represented by just 7 minutes. There is even a moment when the winds are calm enough for the birds to make an appearance.
Featuring:
Luke Wachter, Percussion
Grayson Fiske, Percussion
Richard Crowder, Percussion
Susan Lucia, Percussion
Fluxes (2015) from Antarctica Music from the Ice by Cheryl E. Leonard
For three performers on sand, rock slabs from Breaker Island Antarctica, clam shells, driftwood, and limpet shells; with field recordings of ocean waves and brash ice near Anvers Island, Antarctica.
In 2008-2009 I journeyed to the Antarctic Peninsula to gather raw materials for Antarctica: Music from the Ice, a set of compositions about environments, ecosystems, and climate change in the region. For five weeks, I lived and worked at Palmer Research Station as a participant in the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program.
Exploring the islands and ocean near the station, I recorded natural soundscapes and collected rocks, shells, and penguin bones to use as musical instruments. After returning home, I combined these sound sources into ten pieces, each focused on a unique aspect of the region. Fluxes was inspired by the profusion of life I witnessed in the Southern Ocean along the Antarctic Peninsula. Here, upwelling of cool, nutrient-rich, deep ocean waters fuels vast plankton blooms in the austral spring. Swarms of krill eat the plankton, and these small crustaceans - which have a biomass larger than any other animal on Earth - support the region's abundant populations of whales, seals, penguins, and seabirds. Featuring sounds played on seashells, Fluxes contrasts the scarcity of life visible in the open ocean with its striking abundance in coastal waters. The piece also reflects the uncertain future of this vibrant, unique marine ecosystem, as warming ocean temperatures and changes to currents and upwelling patterns are likely to impact it significantly.
Video by Oona Stern. Footage shot in the Drake Passage; Raudfjorden, Svalbard; Buttermilk Channel, NY.
Featuring:
Luke Wachter, Percussion
Richard Crowder, Percussion
Grayson Fiske, Percussion
Cheryl E. Leonard (b. 1969) is a San Francisco-based composer, performer, field recordist, and instrument builder whose works investigate natural sites and ecosystems, and human relationships to them. Her projects cultivate stones, wood, water, ice, sand, shells, feathers, and bones as musical instruments, and feature one-of-a-kind sculptural instruments and field recordings from remote locales. She uses microphones and amplification to explore subtle intricacies of sounds, and develops compositions that highlight unique voices and soundscapes while addressing environmental issues such as climate change and extinction of species. Her musical research has taken her to a wide range of wilderness areas, including Antarctica and the Arctic. Leonard’s works have been presented in concerts and art exhibitions in the Americas, Europe, Japan, and Australasia. Her recordings are available on Other Minds Records, mappa, SubPop, Public Eyesore, and numerous other labels. Commissions include pieces for Kronos Quartet, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and Funsch Dance. In addition to her solo projects, Leonard frequently collaborates with visual artists, choreographers, poets, scientists, and other musicians. www.allwaysnorth.com
An Island We Never Leave (2018) by Aaron Helgeson (b. 1982)
An island we never leave is assembled using simple rudiments from folk flute-playing traditions, transcribed and fragmented from various historical performances and recorded oral histories in Ireland, Japan, Norway, and Slovakia.
A few facts...
There are at least 37 places in the world named Bird Island.
The Slovakian fujara, like the Scandanvian seljefløyte, is a "fipple" flute without finger holes. Only harmonic overtones are playable using the embouchre, and by covering the end of the instrument with the thumb.
Bird Island of Ireland lies in the middle of Strangford Lough near Kircubbin, the town where Rev. William Warwick was hanged in 1798 for writing documents in support of the Irish Rebellion. It will soon disappear as a result of rising sea levels due to climate change.
Slovakia has a man-made Bird Island. It was built in order to re-home bird populations displaced from flooding caused by dams constructed on the Danube that produce renewable electricity and divert floodwaters away from human settlements.
Featuring:
Sonya Yeager-Meeks, Flute
…from Canopy
Leaf Dance (2022) by Conrad Kehn (b. 1972)
eLeaf# (2022) by Conrad Kehn (b. 1972)
In the fall of 2023, Ryan Fiegl and I composed and performed the music for Control Group’s Canopy- a leaf-peeping tour along 30 miles of Deer Canyon Valley Road in Littleton, Colorado. The show combined live music, poetry, and dance, in a renovated school bus that we fitted with a surround sound system. Canopy was an invitation, asking guests to embrace change, hibernation, and the coming sleep of winter and to recognize the deep connection and reliance we have on trees, the connection and reliance trees have to the land, and the interconnectedness between the two.
Tonight’s performance is a reworking of two separate pieces into one longer work and features a poem I wrote about my own relationship to trees, including the canopy formed by the two enormous Purple Ash trees in my front yard. The work also features Control Group dancer Caroline Sharkey, performing a variation of her choreography from the original show. She can also be heard reading The Overstory by Richard Powers. Musically, drones set a foundation for a musical conversation between Ryan (guitar) and I, which is at times responsive to the choreography while other times informing it.
Featuring:
Conrad Kehn, Electronics & Voice
Ryan Fiegl, Electric Guitar
Caroline Sharkey, Dancer