Friday

Ariel is based on the powerful spirit in William Shakespeare's play The Tempest. Bound to serve the magician Prospero, Ariel serves as both spy and foil. Ariel is the bringer of storms and destroyer of ships, but also the rescuer of the drowning, a romantic matchmaker, and a silver-tongued influencer. Ariel is also a singer and one of Shakespeare's most musical characters. The manifestations of Ariel's magic are tied to their songs, and their entrances and exits are usually staged with music. Jonathan Dove took Ariel's songs and set them to an unaccompanied melody (a cappella) in this cycle of songs. Come unto these yellow sands is the first of these songs. Ariel appears in Act 1 Scene 2, invisible to all but Prospero, and sings this song to calm the storm over the ocean they set into motion. It also serves as an invitation to Ferdinand, shipwrecked due to the storm, to come further into the island. The use of the [sh] sound evokes the sound of the ocean waves. Everyone is invited to participate in these ocean-making sounds to create the atmosphere.

Text from Come unto these yellow sands:

Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands:
Curtsied when you have, and kiss'd
The wild waves whist,
Foot it featly here and there;
And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.
Hark, hark!
Bow-wow.
The watch-dogs bark.
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, Cock-a-diddle-dow.

The never-surfeited sea…

The Western concept of music started to shift around the time of Beethoven's death (1827 CE). Increasingly viewed as a historical artifact, the social spheres around the emerging "classical music" genre looked towards the musical score as a set of inviolable instructions needing preservation. But composers like Handel, Mozart, and Liszt did not perform verbatim what they wrote—and would be shocked at our practice of doing so! 

Musicians across time and place have engaged in the act of improvisation (spontaneous music making). Participants permit themselves the freedom to explore and create music that is right for that moment. While the ratio of "planned" versus "spontaneous" will vary, and culture and style may influence the practice of improvisation, there really is no "right way" to improv. In the United States, jazz is most frequently associated with improvisation. However, it occurs everywhere—the pianist or organist vamping during a service, the vocal riffs of Aretha Franklin or Michael Bublé, children inventing up songs on the playground. Even if not musically, you improv most of your daily life.

Through musical play, Jonathan and I created worked out how we might improvise a song cycle about about the ocean. Only later did we create a written "musical score"—a set of suggestions, not instructions—for how others might perform the cycle. If you compared this to a coloring book, this provides us the “lines” within which to operate while we collaborate on what “colors” to use. For today, the first movement is inspired by an ocean-related news article we collected—during the concert! The second movement is inspired by a photo related to the ocean; festival supporters helped us pick this image in this instance. The final movement is inspired by a poem or literary reading about the sea; festival supporters selected the reading provided by the Center for Humans and Nature. The sounds created by the pianist may include percussive uses of the piano case (banging), playing directly on the strings, or any other method. The singer may sing on any combination of vowels, consonants, or words, or they can sing full texts. We invite all in attendance to participate (we’ll tell you when). We are happy to provide the “score” for free to all.

Dr. Craig Santos Perez is an indigenous Chamoru (Chamorro) from the Pacific Island of Guåhan (Guam). He is a poet, scholar, editor, publisher, essayist, critic, book reviewer, artist, environmentalist, political activist, and a Professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa where he teaches creative writing, eco-poetry, and Pacific literature. He is an affiliate faculty member with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies and the Indigenous Politics Program. Craig’s childhood included beautiful beaches and ocean views within a community and culture that values its place as a part of nature and as caretakers of the entire ecosystem. However, these scenic view were obscured by the United States military, its environmental impacts, and, by extension, the waste and pollution of the industrialized world. These experiences materialized quickly in the poetry of his early twenties. Through the the 2014 United Nations Climate Summit, these views broadened. His perspective globalized. He connected the militarization and industrialization of the world with rising temperatures and sea levels. The localized experiences of his childhood community and a broader sense of the globalized climate crisis married. They remain central to his artistic and activist endeavors across two spoken word poetry albums, five books on poetry, and numerous essays. 

For World Ocean Day 2014, Craig composed an epic-scale poem in honor of the ocean. Aware of the infinite ways people relate to the sea, he wanted to capture as many aspects as possible within the text. The first iteration of Praise Song to Oceania was an emotional journey for Craig—the many blessings of the ocean alongside the shame of our collective destructive actions. As he continued to revise the poem over several years, it took on additional meaning—even as a visual representation of the ocean. The justification of each line of text, the abandonment of punctuation and capitalization, and text italicization suggest the perpetual movement of the ocean's waves. The final poem was published in 2020 and can be found here.

Notes from the composer, Adam Schumaker:

When Thomas Alaán asked me to write a song cycle based on environmental themes, I was immediately invested in the project. Praise Song for Oceania felt song-like to me. Still, I knew it would be challenging to divide such a substantial, lengthy poem into sections. Equally as challenging would be to compose the music so it could be played by either a folk/pop guitar strummer or classical guitarist. Melodic lines and rhythms come naturally when I recite a poem. I must have read the poem twenty times or so out loud. Through this recitation, musical themes emerged, and I eventually found the right places to divide the poem. Thomas and I initially agreed to three songs, but the division of the text really called for four songs. The fourth also ended up being the most "poppy" of songs—the music reflects the poem's core, a celebration of our ocean water. I treated the composition process like a singer-songwriter and put chords above the poem's lyrics. I memorized the melodic shapes as I went. After a few verses or sections were in my head, I returned to notate them. I occasionally jumped to other sections and returned to re-compose or revise sections. The poetry structure is less strict rhythmically, unlike a pop song, so music is a little freer at times, jumping between tonal centers and inserting extra beats or meter changes. Overall, each song has its own mood and a chord progression that defines it. Throughout the process, I collaborated extensively with Nanae Fujiwara on the guitar part. I loved this process the most because although I played guitar, the classical guitar preferences were novel. Her edits helped make this entire work possible.

Excerpt from Praise Song to Oceania:

praise our common heritage

praise our pathway and promise to each other

praise our most powerful metaphor

praise your vision of belonging

praise our endless saga

praise your blue planet

one world ocean

praise our trans-oceanic

past present future flowing

through our blood