Resonant Gratitude

Abstract

Resonant Gratitude is a composition for chamber orchestra (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, 4 percussion, voices, strings) and the Living Earth. The music is flexible in duration, as it relies on a performer’s breath cycle as a temporal marker. The premiere was 45 minutes long, but the piece could range between 30 to 75 minutes. Resonant Gratitude premiered on April 21, 2024, as the closing act of the inaugural Refugia Festival. Refugia Festival was hosted in Nichols Arboretum in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Resonant Gratitude explores a sonic dialogue between our human music and the more-than-human music of our natural surroundings. This dissertation stems from a lifelong commitment to environmental advocacy. Its performance invites listeners and practitioners to recognize nature’s power, wisdom, and vulnerability through sound. Even though music is regularly performed in outdoor spaces worldwide, this composition takes the environmental impact of our human-made sounds as a guiding principle. It incorporates our living soundscapes based on attentive listening and improvisation. Since the sounds of the Living Earth are a required component of the composition, Resonant Gratitude must be performed in open-air environments. Each movement of Resonant Gratitude incorporates a combination of notated text prompts, musical cells, and improvisational flexibility to create a meaningful and balanced dialogue with the Living Earth. The “Prelude” invites a sense of groundedness and connection to the place through breath and observation. The first movement, “Air Beings,” highlights the woodwinds as they reinforce the delicate sounds produced by wind and birds. The “Breeze Transition” is based on a personal experience in which bird calls gave way to a breeze that rustled the leaves and then returned after the wind faded. The second movement, “Earth Beings,” features the percussionists along with clarinet, bassoon, cello, and bass. This movement’s construction is inspired by the strength of plant root systems, rocks, and natural elements from the Earth, exemplified by the use of copper pipes in the percussion parts. “Bloom Transition” brings the aforementioned plant systems above ground through various additive processes with performers, harmonies, and rhythms. The final “Water Beings” movement reflects on my interactions with numerous physical states of water, including glacial striating and calving, whirlpools, cascades, waves, and rain droplets. The composition ends with introspective sonic play using natural “loose parts” collected on the ground by the performers, along with unspoken text prompts on reflection and gratitude. The music is structured to engage directly with and respond to the natural surroundings without overpowering them. This structural flexibility makes the work site-specific and prioritizes listening as much as sounding. This piece also invites audience members to engage in the performance through the text prompts spoken throughout the piece. Attendees may choose to contribute sounds with each prompt at all times, occasionally, or not at all— their presence and attentive listening are already respected as active participation. Resonant Gratitude develops a collaborative creation network between human presences and places based on mutual exchange with more-than-human life. The heightened awareness and appreciation of the soundscapes within the ecosystem catalyze community action to preserve the natural environment for future generations to listen.