Arts for activism: Passions for our tortured planet

The past century has seen a dramatic increase in climate-related events across the world, from destructive super typhoons in the Philippines to raging forest fires in the American West, from severe droughts in Australia to thousands of cubic meters of ice being sheared from the Antarctic glaciers. All these events have taken costly tolls – both direct and indirect – on human lives, along with the destruction of wildlife and changes in our global ecosystem.

Recently, feelings of frustration and alienation around leaders’ inactivity in response to this crisis have driven some individuals to more radical expressions, such as throwing food or paint at works of art in museums in Europe. While certainly attention-grabbing, these more destructive efforts have led to further public polarization around the issue. As a more unifying counterpoint, award-winning American composer Brian Field has opted for a constructive approach to raising awareness and stimulating dialogue around the rapidly accelerating climate crisis through his global artistic project Passions for our Tortured Planet.

Field has composed a three-movement solo piano work titled Three Passions for our Tortured Planet. Each of the individual movements is titled after a climatic phenomenon and vividly depicts some of the challenges of climate change throughout the unfolding of the work.

Recent works touching on this theme – such as Elena Kats-Chernin’s Symphonia Eluvium for chorus and orchestra, composed for the victims of the Queensland floods of 2011, or Sean Shepherd’s Melt and Sprout for orchestra, depicting the melting process of the polar ice caps – offer mournful reflections on the harmful effects of climatic events on human life. Often commissioned specifically for festivals, works such as these can have a limited impact, having rarely been performed since their premier.

Field’s Passions for our Tortured Planet engage with the effects of global warming from a less human-focused perspective, offering artists the chance to be an ‘artist of change’. To generate a broader reach for this work, Field has opened his project to pianists from around the world to champion the project and cause, donating 100% of proceeds from the effort to the non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists. Artists can sign up on the project website to download the score for free and lend their talents to the cause, programming the work within their recital, tour or recording. Dozens of professional pianists from cross the globe – from Vienna to San Francisco and from Rio de Janeiro to St Petersburg – have committed to record and regularly perform his work.

American composer Brian Field aims to stimulate dialogue around the climate crisis through his three Passions (image courtesy of Brian Field)

The first piece in the triptych is titled ...fire… and colourfully represents the slow but continuous growth of the destructive wildfires which affect California and the American West every year. The piece begins with a short single note or a ‘spark’ which slowly expands to a repeating ostinato pattern which drives the music through levels of intensification and textural growth, eventually reaching a clangorous climax which then slowly dissipates, burning itself out.

The second piece, ...glaciers…, illustrates the tragic and progressive destruction of the planet’s glacial ice bodies. The movement begins with a series of lengthy, unhurriedly changing chords, reminiscent of the opening of Claude Debussy’s La cathédrale engloutie, representing the natural state of a glacial behemoth. However, the apparent calm is sporadically interrupted by progressively louder ‘roaring’ episodes illustrating the tumbling of glacial walls.

The cycle concludes with the third movement aptly titled ...winds…. Opening with a minimalist continuum, the work portrays soft winds which rapidly become a fierce and violently destructive storm with rolling thunder. Finally, in a stroke of poetic imagination, the movement and the work as a whole come to an end with a small but powerful shimmering ray of hope.

Pianist and project participant Dr Po Sim Fanny Head underscores the need for regular delivery of this message to audiences when she remarked, ‘How we raise awareness is through consistency and frequency of message—whether it’s this particular piece or others, ongoing programming of works that speak to this [climate] crisis is the most impactful role we can play.’

To participate in the project, visit the Passions for our Tortured Planet website where you can freely download the score, track global performances, and access resources for supporting climate change awareness and action.

Juan Patricio Saenz is an Argentine pianist and music theorist currently based in Canada.