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Show Valley: Three Corners of Our Room An Interdisciplinary Work for Chamber Choir, Solo Instruments, and Electronics Introduction Valley: Three Corners of Our Room is a three-movement musical work for chamber choir, solo instruments (trumpet and flute), and electronics. The overarching theme of the project incorporates issues of environmentalism, climate change, and sustainability, and each movement (“corner”) seeks to bring awareness of a specific environmental issue that is currently present in the greater Salt Lake Valley area. As an interdisciplinary composition, it includes a collaboration with poet Matty Lane Glasgow in the University of Utah Department of English, faculty at the University of Utah South Physics Campus Observatory (in the collection and sonification of light pollution data), salinity and water level data collected from the U.S. Geological Survey, as well as video footage showing relevant locations throughout the Salt Lake Valley filmed by Dallas Herndon and Zheng Zhou. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to bring attention to and convey the growing issues of climate change, including light pollution, noise pollution, and the consequences of the shrinking Great Sale Lake, through the artistic medium of music composition. The work will be officially recorded and documented on February 26th, 2023, in Libby Gardner Concert Hall. Sonification: The process of converting data or nonmusical objects and information into musical sound. An overarching technique of Valley: Three Corners of Our Room is the process of sonification, which is used to translate and tie together environmental and climate data into a form of ideas that can be expressed musically. In working through the process of sonification, many decisions are made regarding the use of pitch, rhythm, timbre, texture, and other musical parameters to ensure the data is represented artistically, yet in a way that still conveys the underlying message. Graph showing salinity and water levels for the Great Salt Lake. Measurements were used to sonify and generate the pitch material for the third movement by converting each measurement into specific frequencies. I. Astarmagtisms II. Muted, Hear No Echo The first movement in Valley: Three Corners of Our Room is influenced by the growing issue of light pollution, and more specifically, how the issue light pollution is largely a result of modern urbanization that often has an adverse effect on the natural environment. The second movement focuses on the issue of noise pollution, this movement uses field recordings from urban areas, and combines them with sounds of nature. The musical material uses a variety of owl calls to express the dangers of noise pollution to owl species that rely upon natural communication for their survival, such as the Mexican Spotted Owl that can be found in the Zion National Park. The solo trumpet functions as a personification of the owl call and is generated through the conversion of the owl call field recordings into MIDI information to determine the initial pitch material. It is then further altered with various timbral techniques and other electronic effects. The choir functions as a disruptive catalyst of the “noise” element, ultimately dissipating and polluting the owl’s capacity to communicate effectively by the movement’s end. The piece incorporates the sonification of light pollution data that was collected from 2019-2020 at the University of Utah campus observatory, roughly over a nine-month period. The title is a reference to a synthesis of the words “star(s)” and “astigmatism,” which is a health concern that I find to be quite relevant to myself as well as naturally related to the growing issue of urban light pollution and design. It is my hope that this piece brings awareness to these growing environmental and health concerns and offers a new perspective in how we might understand the dangers of light pollution in our modern world. Mexican Spotted Owl found in Zion National Park Graph showing sky brightness/visibility with data recorded at the University of Utah South Physics Campus Observatory. Specific data points were sonified by exponentially condensing the measurements into the vocal ranges of the choir. Many species of wildlife rely on communication for their natural survival. Species such as the Mexican Spotted Owl (left) rely on calls to mate, communicate with their young, and hunt for prey. Noise pollution generated by anything as simple as loud conversations can adversely affect these animals’ ability to thrive and communicate effectively. The poem “Muted, Hear No Echo,” follows the plight of the Mexican Spotted Owl and the disruption of the bird’s communication and hunting practices caused by noise pollution. These seven lines attempt to reflect such sonic disorientation through intense assonance, consonance, and conflation of the owl’s call with both traffic and construction. The rendering of the bird itself as a “spotted echo” embodies the theme of synesthesia in the piece, a process of blurring and defamiliarizing one’s sensorial interactions with the world. The “corner” of this movement explores the environmental relation between our urban cityscapes, lifestyles, and other forms of life in more distant proximities through the medium of sound, ultimately affecting life’s ability to hear and communicate within the confines of our modern world. This work was supported by the Global Change & Sustainability Center atM.M. the University of Utah Dallas J. Herndon, University of Utah School of Music Dallas.Herndon@Utah.edu Dallas J. Herndon School of Music University of Utah Advisor: Elisabet Curbelo III. Dissipate, Shattering Reflections The final movement focuses on the imminent shrinking of the Great Salt Lake. This movement uses scientific data of the lake’s water levels and salinity levels that illustrate the environmental hazards posed by the disappearing of the Great Sale Lake. This data is traced and used roughly over a three-year period (from July 2019 to November 2022). The continuous drone in the electronics material is a representation of the optimal range for brine shrimp. To represent the “optimal range for brine shrimp (Artemia),” two tracks were created with static sustained pitches (one pitch for bottom range and one for the top range). Places where this range is exceeded contain the banging/ringing sound effect. “Dissipate, Shattering Reflections” focuses formally on the process of dissipation and the disappearance of a body of water that has remained, up to this moment, a vestige of deep time— the Great Salt Lake. The poem considers the broader ramifications of such ecological calamity, namely the loss of a key refuge for migratory birds like the white pelican and the toxic impact on air quality the exposure of precious metals will have in the valley. Four quatrains illustrate the plight of the white pelican, the lungs of those who will inhale toxic metals, and the lake itself. The poem then slowly dissolves from its nearly full first stanza to its nearly gone final stanza—the few words remaining functioning as ephemera of another form or poem, mirroring what remains of the lake. The “corner” of this movement is ultimately that of negligence, recession, and the role of how more “distant” environmental hazards can become more dangerous over time. As the movement gradually dissipates into nothing by the end, it specifically encourages us to question our role in the disappearance of natural resources, in conjunction with our livelihood and ability to feel. Score excerpt from Movement II (“Muted, Hear No Echo”) |
