Fourteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Nature has served as muse to composers for centuries. Social and political issues have also motivated composers. Until recently, these sources of inspiration have largely remained pure and unmixed within discrete musical works (e.g., Beethoven’s admiration for Revolutionary politics in his “Eroica” Symphony No. 3; Messiaen’s tribute to Utah’s Bryce Canyon in “Des Canyons Aux Etoiles”). However, since the recent arrival of conflicting narratives of climate change—and, by extension, science—a music inspired by nature might now well be taken as a political statement. In this poster session, Hawaiʻi-based composer Jon Magnussen explores the meaning of composing nature- and place-based music in the current “post-truth” era. With examples from recent projects inspired by nature and “aloha ʻāina” (literally, “love of the land”, a concept central to life for indigenous Hawaiians since ancient times), the question of messaging is investigated. Music examples include the “Symphony of Native Hawaiian Birds” (2018), a collective symphonic work, in which six Hawaiʻi-based composers collaborated with six animators, artists and biologists and the Hawai’i Symphony, to create a performance of six animations, each exploring a theme related to the loss of native Hawaiian bird species; and “Kauila Oboe Stories” (2019), an oboe concerto for J. Scott Janusch in celebration of a brand new instrument fashioned by Howarthʻs of London out of once common but now extremely rare kauila wood. Endemic to Hawai’i and known for its excellent “steel” qualities, kauila wood was essential to pre-contact daily activities including farming, music-making, war, healing, games, and more.