Climate Music

Climate Stories Project fosters creative art and music projects that feature people's reflections about climate change impacts and responses. If you would like to share your artistic creations using climate stories, please contact us.

Footsteps in Snow

Footsteps in Snow, by Jason Davis, is inspired by elements of Inuit music, including the drum dance song Siipinngua, throat singing, and the Scottish and Irish jigs that have been part of Inuit musical practice since the 19th century. The changing environment of the Arctic is an important theme as well—at the beginning of the piece, you’ll hear the recorded words of Iñupiat elder John Sinnok speaking about the dramatic effects of climate change on his home village of Shishmaref, Alaska.

Jason Davis, bass
Recorded by Randy Cole

Climate Voices Suite

This suite for solo double bass features the voices of five people from around the world speaking about their personal responses to the climate crisis. The speakers are:

Laura Gill, Stanford, California
Drew Lanham, Seneca, South Carolina
Goksen Sahin, Istanbul, Turkey
Clifford Paul, Membertou, Cape Breton, Canada
Rosalie Zerrudo, Iloilo City, the Philippines

Written and performed by Jason Davis
at Cambridge Public TV in Cambridge, MA

Ice Is What I Remember

This duet for voice and bass depicts the theme of climate change and melting ice through diverse sound material and techniques. An intimate portrait of the changing climate is told through the recorded voice of upstate New York resident Joseph Dumoulin, who speaks about the disappearance of reliable winter ice in ponds upon which he played backyard hockey as a child. His words describing his memories of ice also provide the lyrics for the piece:

Ice is what I remember about my youth
It was just a way of life I thought would never end
The ice is like a mirror
It was just crystal
I realized that way of life was gone

Sienna Dahlen - Voice
Jason Davis - Bass
Recorded by Randy Cole

Here are two music pieces recorded by the group Earthsound. John Sinnok features an interview with Shishmaref, Alaska Iñupiat elder John Sinnok, while Resting Storm features interview material from Bessie Sinnok of Shishmaref and Marybeth Holleman of Anchorage, Alaska. Both pieces are by Jason Davis.

Mr. Sinnok speaks about climate change in vivid terms – among other details, he describes how the sound of people’s footsteps has changed as the climate has warmed and snow on the ground has become wetter:

Back when I was young
We have always had north wind
All the time
And we would have blizzards
And cold north winds for a good month
And it would be like that for a long time
But after that
The snow gets so cold
That you could hear people walking outside
You could hear their footsteps outside
Nowadays, it doesn’t get that hard any more where you can hear people walking past
The snow doesn’t get that hard, dry anymore
Like it used to

Resting Storm features the reflections of Anchorage resident and nature writer Marybeth Holleman speaking about disappearing glaciers in Prince William Sound, as well as Shishmaref resident Bessie Sinnok reflecting on how climate change is reshaping her community and how the community relies deeply on its connection to the land.

Featuring:
Amir Milstein, flute
Henrique Eisenmann, piano
Bertram Lehmann, drums
Jason Davis, bass
Claire Bourg, violin
Harriet Langley, violin
Jing Peng, viola
Jung-Hsuan Ko, cello
Recorded and mixed at Wellspring Studio, Acton MA
Mastered by Joel Edinberg

Mingan Stories/Le Pêcheur Acadien is a sound montage featuring the spoken reflections of Guy Côté, a ranger at the Mingan Archipelago National Parks Preserve, a group of islands on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in eastern Quebec. Côté speaks about growing up in the area and notes changes he has observed in the intensity of storms and seasonal timing of flowers. His reflections are accompanied by Côté singing Le Pêcheur Acadien, an ode to the sea by A.T. Bourque. In addition, the montage includes field recordings from the park by Jason Davis.