Environmental Music of Christopher Kaufman

Music From Earth takes you on a journey. Kaufman uses what he calls 'symbolic geography' to express the story. It begins with 'Opening Rift', featuring virtuosic music performed by alto saxophonist Chad Smith and volcanic orchestral music and sound design with video images from the mid-atlantic rift - symbolizing the rift between man and nature. The following movement, 'Earth Rhythm', features powerful repeating rhythms and takes you from the deep ocean to the surface - this movement ends with sounds of the 'earth breathing'. The next movement, 'Air', features sounds of birds and owls, woodwinds and insects and images from the Earth's surface as Smith performs beautiful melodic passages. Then there is an interlude where the screen goes dark and you hear improvised piano music from the composer leading into the movement titled, 'Indian Snake Dance'. This movement features a complex texture with tabla and 'electronic sitar' and other sounds, and images of the earth from deep space ensue closing in to the surface. The final movement is titled 'Urthstorm' and shows Smith performing energetic and passionate solos within images of exploding suns.

Hudson Valley Music takes you on a journey and features a unique device. When you see a creature - the soundtrack features the sounds of that creature. In the live performances, Kaufman invites the audience to close their eyes embark in their dugout canoe out into the Long Island Sound. The first movement, 'Ocean', begins with the sounds of oars and ocean waves. A humpbacked whale begins to sing and the french horn joins, thus the work begins with a duet between horn and whale. You hear the sounds of beluga whales - they are recorded underwater and sound like starships - and you turn your boat to shore. As you near shore you see and hear the music of songbirds as the instrumentalists perform interweaving melodies. The movement climaxes as geese pass overhead and trumpet wildly - you enter the forest with a 'symphony of birds'. In the primeval 'Forest' you experience many climaxes of energetic music. Following 'Forest' is 'Nocturne' where the forest is quiescent and dark. After 'Nocturne' is 'Industrial Storm' - supercharged music designed to grab people by the lapel and give them the feeling of fight or flight and bring the issue of climate change to their direct experience. The final movement is ecstatic, and beautific - leaving you with a profound sense of the beauty of nature and our place within it and is titled, "...and the Earth is our spiritual house..."

Music From earth AND Hudson Valley Music (with 'making of...")

Composed in response to the BP Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico… where creatures are still dying, Ocean tells a story.  Imagine you are a whale father or mother swimming peacefully in mildly turbulent waters… then you encounter a deadly swath of oily water and watch your child drown while you are unable to help her. There are many aspects to this piece, and moments of arrival and beauty…It ends with an emotional scream meant to make people feel the reality of what is happening to creatures there…creatures as intelligent as we are and who have an even much larger part of their brains dedicated to emotion.

There are many reasoned arguments concerning environmental preservation. But we must also make people feel it…and this is something the arts can address.

In OCEAN I took the whale-song and turned it into thematic content. OCEAN begins with the depiction of a seascape – somewhat turbulent, very passionate – with waves crashing on the shore. In the latter section, ‘Oil in the Water’, the music expresses outrage at what we are doing to our oceans. This music deals with the conditions and issues of our time in a direct and timely way. The expressive ending sounds an appeal to the audience as if the musicians are channeling the message of the great intelligent creatures of our magnificent oceans.