Arctic soundscape fills rooms in the Jefferson Market Library in Greenwich Village, New York. Various instruments – keyboards, soprano saxophones, experimental prototype soundboards, percussion instruments and water phones (a jagged metal instrument that produces fragile and troubling resonance) – creates the sound of glaciers and cold winds. Only the heavy traffic outside reminds us that we are still in New York.
A unique and ever-changing performance by composer and sound artist Mary Edwards, the “invisible architecture/ubiquitous sound landscape/we are everywhere we are at the farthest point”, which is the sound of the Arctic.
The music begins with a splash of glacier calving and leads to a jingle-like glacier form on the ice. Arctic winds rolled into the sea with the sound of ice, followed by the sound of waves when they hit. Jazz saxophonist Michael Eaton Keys incorporates the melody that comes from the Edwards synthesizer. The soundscapes they create exist in the layer and are built from there.
Edwards creates a space for others to invite audience members to pick from the many instruments on the table and interact and contribute to the performance. On a recent night, Edwards put a microphone in her mind, creating the basis for the percussion between the subsequent improvisation and the improvisation between Eaton. In other performances, she invites the audience to attend her heartbeat. There are no two performances the same as each iteration that is shaped by the audience and the environment.
The work was a show at the Hampton Jazz Festival at Sag Harbor Church in Long Island, Epsilon Spiers in Vermont, and returned to the space where the project originated in the show venue at Longyearbyen in Svalbard.
In 2022, Edwards travels to Svalbard as an artist resident of the Arctic Circle and sails on the 78th parallel. The cause was a long dream: “When I was about 12, I asked my parents to subscribe to National Geographic’s birthday gifts, and when the first issue came out, it was Arctic,” she said. “At the beginning of the exploration, this photo of a group of researchers on a zodiac ship confused me. I imagined myself on that ship and thought I would love to do it one day.”
For Edwards, the purpose of this journey was to listen to and record the acoustic properties of glacial geological and oceanographic data. She recorded the phenomenon by flooding the water pipes underwater, reaching a depth of 90 feet. Working at sea and on land, she captures sounds through the levels and levels of frozen water. “The transfer of icebergs was flooded,” Edwards said. “Things that wouldn’t be heard on the surface.” Later, she gently handled the live recordings and wrote her own music on it. She discovered similar tones, accompanied by natural sounds on the synthesizer and used a water phone.
What does it sound like when a melted glacier calf falls into the sea? “Like fireworks…in the distance. When a glacier calf, you hear this corresponding calving sound in the distance…in a sense, it’s like a call and an outbreak.” Hearing the melting water passage of the glacier pouring into the sea is like “like listening to traffic in a sense, water-based traffic…the ice sheets are walking around.”
Jonathan Kingslake, associate professor at the Columbia Climate School of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, is currently studying the effects of glacier melting on ice sheet dynamics, explaining how this transfer and melting occurs. One way is to flow directly into the ocean as the surface ice melts. Another way, he said, is that melted water can flow through the cracks and conduits, towards the bottom of the glacier. The velocity of the flow fluctuates, and if enough water accumulates at the base, it can change the water pressure and slow down the flow of the glacier itself.
At the end of each show, the Q&A session allows audience members to ask questions about the show, share explanations and learn more about Edwards’ time in the Arctic.
During Edwards’ trip, a colleague suggested her music was a “elegy”, a sad response to loss and change reality. But Edwards thinks the piece is happy, and “We’re everywhere” is an ode to the North Pole. She said when glacier calves, when waves curl at the bottom of the glacier, they make these truly beautiful eruptions soundly and visually in the water and visually. ”
While living, a glacier created a glacier when an Edwards colleague ventured into the iceberg on the shore. Edwards soon noticed that the “little wave” was getting bigger and faster and quickly approached her colleagues with ice. Fortunately, one of the expedition guides was able to intervene in a timely manner and quickly returned her to safety on land.
Edwards describes the glacier that the sea creates as “one of the most beautiful sounds”, and she marvels at the curve of the waves it creates. She recognizes the potential for beauty in situations of destruction and says “nature should not be ignored.” Survival in the Arctic is a collaborative effort, just like the soundscape and interactive environments established by Edwards’ performances.
For more information on the upcoming performance, visit Mary Edwards‘The website or the New York Public Library’s event page for the Jefferson Market Library.
