Episode Transcript:
Earlier this year, I took a trip to Alaska. What you’re hearing is me hiking along a trail in Anchorage whilst positioning a handheld recorder to capture the sounds around me as I walk. It was still the winter season, and the snow that was packed onto the ground amplified my footsteps. Occasionally you can hear small charter planes above or the sound of other people along the trail, but it’s mostly quite still. The water was still frozen in time and the snow-capped trees stood erect, reaching for the light that gives them strength.
I had come to Alaska not just because it’s high on my travel bucket list, but because for many years it was the place in which two composers I greatly admire lived and worked. The music of John Luther Adams and Matthew Burtner has become inextricably tied to the landscape of Alaska, and I wanted to do my best to walk in their shoes and be able to see, hear and feel some of those same things.
This relationship was also the focal point of my master’s thesis, which examined how living in Alaska affected how Adams and Burtner compose music. But I quickly realized that these relationships are felt by everyone regardless of where they live or what their careers may be. It affects our attitudes, our behaviors, and even our memory. It’s a relationship so ingrained in us since birth, it’s very easy to forget how powerful it is.
I also realized that there are countless composers who have used their musical voice to articulate their relationships to their environment, at least, more than could sufficiently represented in a singular research document. The desire to talk about and profile these composers has encouraged to use the platform of a podcast in order to dive deeper and learn more about how their landscapes, ecosystems, and environments inspire them to create the music that they make.
It’s quite a coincidence that I should come to this realization amidst the pandemic we all find ourselves in. This was not intended to be framed through the lens of living with the coronavirus, , but the reality is that for better or for worse, this has forced all of us to confront and reconsider our relationships to our living spaces. The good news here is that I do believe has wider implications towards how we consider the world around us.
I’m going to begin this journey by releasing an episode for each chapter of the thesis, although I won’t be as wordy. Then I’ll try to flip flop between profiling some of the composers mentioned in the document as well as interview living composers to gain some insight into how nature and place affects their compositional process. If possible, I’ll even attempt to dive into the psychology and philosophy of place, as there is a substantial body of research on these subjects. Along the way I encourage you to reach out and let me know what you like and what you don’t like, any feedback or new artists you think I should check out. My hope is to expand this behind a musical context and interview performers, visual artists, architects, and dancers, as they certainly embrace these relationships in their practices.
But in the end, I hope that you may learn something new, hear something new, or gain a new perspective on how your own places affect you.
My name is Luke Helker. This is Ears to the Earth.