Bering Sea

Commissioned by REDSHIFT Ensemble
Bb clarinet/bass clarinet,* violin, cello, and stereo digital sound
using arctic field recordings by Kathy Turco
*String trio version also exists with viola instead of clarinets
2011
5 minutes

Purchase the music ($30)
includes score and parts (PDF) and rehearsal/performance materials
View perusal score.

Program note: When I think of the Bering Sea, my imagination leads me to consider fairly unfathomable concepts: geologic time, the migration of early humans, a remote and unique ecosystem full of animals I likely have never seen before (and whose habitat I can only guess is at risk of changing, being in a coastal, arctic region).  In the audio Kathy Turco recorded in the Pribilof Islands, among the waves, fur seals, murres and auklets, arctic foxes and songbirds, I found sounds of thriving life and even laughter.  Given only an auditory glimpse of a place I’ve never been, I couldn’t help but imagine it through the lens of the countless nature documentaries I’ve seen and the movies at the Omnitheater of the Science Museum of Minnesota I loved as a child.  I was inspired most by the humor I found in the sounds and the august richness of such a wild, vast, and remote part of the world. 

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