GLFCAM — To lay down in a bed of yesteryear

For the second in our ongoing NewMusicBox guest editor series, we are collaborating with the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music [GLFCAM]. The series will focus on the intersection of musical creativity and climate commitment. As an introduction, we are reprinting the letter that Ms. Frank sent to all of this year’s participants in Composing Earth. — FJO

An essential component of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music’s Climate Commitment, Composing Earth is a commissioning program for composers who recognize that climate change — climate disruption — is a bona fide civilizational emergency. Composing Earth asks for a two-year commitment from Composer Alumni of GLFCAM. In the first year, composers receive a study stipend to participate in a monthly discussion group with peers, Gabriela, and renowned scholar/communicator of climate science (and music lover) Dr. Rob Davies. These meetings provide an opportunity to review articles, books, documentaries, and online resources regarding the climate crisis, allowing the composer time to find their own personal stories which inspire their commissioned work in the second year. Along the way, “weekly musings” are sent out every Wednesday by a member of the cohort to the full group. Some of these musings, whether in the form of personal letters and other times developed into soulful essays, are featured in the series below. Inaugurated in 2021, Composing Earth has realized three Cohorts through its program, totaling nearly thirty artists, with a fourth already scheduled to begin in January of 2024. Anyone interested in embarking on the journey to eco-ethics as an artist is invited to sign up for GLFCAM’s weekend online course open to the general public, Climate Intelligence and Action for Artists, on June 3-4, 2023. 

Dear Composing Earthers, Cohort I:

Before all else, I want to thank you all for the wonderful meetings and Weekly Musings from the past few months. When I first started scheming up Composing Earth here at GLFCAM, I knew that its success would depend on the willingness of participants to engage personally and intellectually. Truthfully, the sum of all of your thoughts and sharing has far exceeded my hopes, and I’ve learned so much. Thank you for your commitment especially considering your busy lives. 

Since we last met, I finished my short orchestral work, Contested Eden, for the Cabrillo Music Festival. As I mentioned, I underestimated the time needed to figure out how to address the CA wildfires. In truth, I had been putting off the work, rusty from COVID disuse, but also apprehensive to tackle the subject. (Backstory: A few months before the deadline, I was caught off guard when Cabrillo admin asked, in a Zoom with my agent, if I’d write something about the wildfires. Without thinking, I blurted out “yes” and instantly regretted it, not because the subject isn’t important, but because time was short.) To help with inspiration, I did find an extraordinary anthology of poems about wildfire by CA natives, mostly ordinary folks who aren’t routinely/professionally creative. But I still struggled. 

When I finally rolled up my sleeves to get to work, I first wrote what could best be described as a melodramatic soundtrack for a theoretical documentary on fire. Here’s the fire climbing up a douglas fir: Scurrying violins. There’s the ominous ascending column of smoke over hills before it sinks to the valley floor: Horns in sixths to fifths to fourths to thirds to seconds, harmonized to descending bassoons. A solo flute could be the lonely bird hovering over a burned nest.  Windchimes for… well, wind and maybe a charred kite. And riffing Ennio Morricone is always good for a firefighter’s vista shot surveying husks of homes against rising ash.

This went on for a while, a couple of weeks. Ultimately, it was a useful, if mortifying, exorcism of music I’ll never show anyone, leaving behind just one small usable germ: The idea of in extremis as quoted by one of the writers in the fire anthology. Latin for “in extreme circumstances,” this is an apt description for life in my beloved California during the past several apocalyptic seasons, an effort of normalcy while death is constantly imminent. I have been living in near constant terror here in rural Boonville. Yet, something inside, deep in one’s spirit, simply perseveres while surrounded by unimaginable chaos. In Contested Eden, the heart of the piece is a slowly moving violin line that elegiacally descends, over several minutes, moving from the stratospheres down to its lowest register before handing off to the violas, who eventually hand off to the cellos, who hand off to the basses. All the while, against this almost too-long falling arc, brief bits and pieces of earlier pieces I’ve authored come to life in the orchestra and vanish. Nothing coheres or makes sense, like memories that are of little help and comfort. That’s life in extremis.

It’s a bit of an odd work, even disjointed, which is a leap from one that likes balance and a cohesive journey. Knowing me, the piece yet ends on a hopeful note, a hint of the work’s opening and original secular psalm in tribute to the Eden that’s my native state. Perhaps the psalm feels earned by the piece’s end.

In addition to actually creating music at long last, these past months I’ve been renegotiating upcoming commission/residency contracts, attempting to get post-pandemic life on a sure footing. I’m struck again by how few people recognize the coronavirus as an environmental crisis – pandemics are much more likely on a warming planet, after all – and that they have already lost so much because of human-driven climate change. While some understand that I want to work remotely as much as possible (and now, after this pandemic, virtual activity is imaginable), others are amused/irritated at my quixotism. My hope is that I can use these next few years to broadcast my desired lifestyle changes to encourage established peers to ask and plan for the same, which would make it easier for emerging artists to also receive such considerations. And I think that bringing in income from sources other than my freelance work will be key; I am scheming to think big on how GLFCAM could be of more financial benefit to its alums in the coming years.

All this to say – I’m new on this journey and honestly just want to lie back down in a comfortable bed of yesteryear. But the past is there to stay, and forward’s all we’ve got. I’m grateful to be sharing this journey with all of you.