PROJECTS
Land and Sea
In partnership with The Earth Institute, Columbia University, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, The German Consulate NYC, and the Climate Group NYC. SciSound concert and lecture series is designed to showcase scientific research and fieldwork that develops the understanding of sea level and coastline change, through the process of collaboration at the intersection of Music and Science. Collaborators, Jacky Austermann, Assistant Professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Eve O'Donnell, composer, and creative producer, and Lea Luka Sikau, Mezzo-Soprano, and Ethnomusicologist at Cambridge University have created a multimedia music video and creative response for the digital performance space.
MUSIC VIDEO
Inspired by the publications and mathematical equations of Jacky Austermann, Assistant Professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, both Eve O'Donnell, composer and Lea Luka Sikau, Mezzo-Soprano have created a multimedia music video and creative response for the digital performance space. Land and Sea is the musical composition for the music video Sea Level Change: A SciArt Concert, designed to showcase work that develops the understanding of sea level and coastal change, through the process of collaboration at the intersection of music and science. The music explores the patterns and the structural frame within the scientific work, through the use of electronics, voice, guitar, mathematical equation, instructional performance art techniques, showcasing spoken and sung text that displays Austermann’s equation and results. The full SciSound interdisciplinary series can be found at scisound.com
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
The lecture will be presented live by Austermann where she discusses the collaboration, and how it showcases certain elements of the research within her work specific to her publication: Calculating gravitationally self-consistent sea level changes driven by dynamic topography, in addition to the overarching science behind sea level change.
Arctic Water
Arctic Water is a Multimedia Choral Work for SATB choir, and video, written as part of a larger work developed to create awareness of the issues surrounding climate change. Arctic Water is inspired by the stunning aerial photographs of the Greenland ice caps captured by Timo Lieber. These images are from the environmental awareness project THAW and are here used as the film backdrop to a collaborative project at the intersection of music, photography, and science. THAW has been featured in the NASA online climate awareness publication and highlights the rapidly growing number of blue lakes and rivers that form the Greenland ice cap - one of the most inaccessible areas on earth, where the dramatic impact of climate change is more obvious than anywhere else on the earth. Two near-record melt events occurred in the 2021 melt season for the Greenland Ice Sheet, in late July, and in mid-August. Data from the online Greenland Ice Sheet Today publication accompanies the performance to showcase the rapid and uncharacteristic changes present today. Commissioned by the Os Ensemble Choir for their inaugural concert, the piece premiered at National Sawdust.
Plastic Island, from Halo of Gradient
Halo of Gradient a choral song cycle - Plastic Island, Coral Fires, and Blue Reservoir -is inspired by the book All We Can Save, a collection of articles and poetry written by women at the forefront of the climate movement. Although the text is not taken from this publication it was the inspiration for creating a text, and for my personal interpretation of the deep and internalized changes needed for our society not to go back to business as normal. This idea visualized itself as a gradient of color that manifests in nature. The personal exploration of each shade as an emotional change. Tracing patterns from nature. We are moving fast through a vibrant, yet challenging time and our bodies and minds must keep changing with the narrative.
Plastic Island is an artistic response to the floating plastic islands that are circulating in each of our oceans. Premiered at The Stone at The New School, New York, the piece is performed by the Os Ensemble choir and conductor Raquel Klein. Coral Fires was composed and performed as part of an artistic residency at Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Alberta, Canada. Blue Reservoir was commissioned and performed by the Os Ensemble choir for the founders’ anniversary performance at National Sawdust, NY. Each work is inspired by the theme of human impact on the environment.
Middle of March
Composed during the pandemic as a moment of reflection. The improvised score was work shopped and recorded as a sketch for the development of the final work to be performed.
Moving Surfaces
Moving Surfaces is a duet for two violins that explores the rich tapestry of the string instruments’ extended performance techniques. Workshopped by players from the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, the piece was created as part of an undergraduate study on the compositional techniques of 20th-century serialism music.