New Concert Highlights the Realities of Climate Change

A collaboration between London's Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance and the Royal Maritime Museum has brought to the foreground the effects of climate change on our world, the oceans, and the seasons.

The centerpiece of the concert was Melting, Shifting, Liquid World, a work by Trinity Laban PhD candidate Hollie Harding. First premiered in 2019, the piece is scored for string orchestra and recorded sound. It serves as an immersive experience: the players are generously spread out across the space to allow the audience to move around amongst them, and also to facilitate their own movement.

The work provides a sonic response to Ocean Monitoring Indicators, which are open-source datasets that monitor various changes in the ocean over the last quarter of a century — reflecting on the effects of pollution in the ocean. Audience members were given bone headphones to allow them to hear recorded sound and live sound simultaneously.

The performance took place on the Great Map in Greenwich's National Maritime Museum, so as to utilize the museum as a space that could invite reflection on the future as well as the past. The program also included a re-imagined version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

You can listen to composer Hollie Harding speak about the work below.