Light Water is Black Water Queen's Hall Edinburgh June 4th 2022 Review
Light Water is Black Water Queen's Hall Edinburgh 4th June 2022 Review
Light Water is Black Water by Michael Begg and Black Glass Ensemble was at the Queen’s Hall Edinburgh tonight and this is one show that I have been waiting for since it was re-scheduled from its original January performance schedule. Michael Begg is an electronic music composer whose work interests me in many different ways, and this work which is a partnership with Ocean ARTic and other partners including MASTS (Marine Alliance for Science and Technology, Scotland) to find new ways to get their climate change and environmental information message over to a new audience by using non-conventional methods, in this case music, was for me a perfect alignment of interests.
This review could so easily turn into an environmental message from me too, but there is no point in that as the arguments over whether climate change, speeded up by man’s intervention, is real or not is no longer the discussion point. The real discussion point now is how severe will this already happening climate change affect us all both environmentally and financially, and what are the limited tools at our disposal to at best slow this change down until we have better ways of dealing with this global crisis. Anyone who is still looking the other way on this issue is simply going to have to face the overwhelming evidence of large amounts of scientific data sooner rather than later. The data is out there for anyone to read, so this review is instead concentrating on the music and the event itself.
To separate scientific data from the music of “Light Water is Black Water” is impossible as it is this very data which Michael Begg has used as his source material for his music and here, each of the main strands of data collected by Arctic climate scientists to measure the changes in ice, water, air pressure and other variables has been given a specific “voice” by Michael through his music, and this work is, in a way, this scientific data talking directly to us through the media of music. It was also interesting to hear from Michael himself why this work is titled “Light Water is Black Water” and like so many other things in this world, it is a matter of perspective. If you are viewing the Arctic waters from a height above them then they look black, but if you are viewing those same waters from underneath them and coming up to the surface then they look white.
For this project Michael Begg has created a wonderful soundscape that evokes not only the almost overwhelming natural power of nature of the Arctic, but also the incredible fragility of the whole chain of events that allows all of this beautiful magic to function properly, and you cannot listen to this music and watch the accompanying visuals and not be aware that man’s interference is breaking this fragile chain. Yes, nature as always will adapt and survive, it works on a timescale that we cannot comprehend and it works in ways that we are only now starting to understand in the most basic of ways. Nature will survive our man- made changes to it, but mankind will not unless we change our ways and how we interact with our global systems on this planet.
This was not an entirely electronic composition and the use of traditional instrumentation made a fine blend of old and new ways of making music. The Black Glass Ensemble are: Michael Begg (score, samples, data feeds, erosions); Ben Ponton (receivers, recordings, forensics); Clea Friend (cello); Aisling O’Dea (violin); Julia Lungu (violin); Neil Cuthbertson (trumpet); Jen Cuthbertson (French horn); and Douglas Caskie (tuned percussion).
Ocean ARTic are, as I say, looking at new ways to get their message over to a new audience and events like this are certainly one of many ways to do this as they allow information to be absorbed by people in a completely different fashion to simply presenting data charts and statistics. Sadly, with the best will in the world, the latter can switch many people off to the message that it is carrying. I hope this message, and Michael Begg’s music find a way to reach many more people, but it is perhaps ironic that this performance was in The Queen’s Hall which is a former church, and I suspect that many, if not all, of the people in the audience tonight have been long ago converted to the message of climate change.
The music from Light Water Is Black Water is also available as a CD
TRACK LISTING
1. Invocation 04:16
2. Data February 09:00
3. The Arctic Night 08:50
4. Air Pressure Anomaly in January 06:32
5. Spring Bloom in May 09:24
6. Data July 07:36
7. The Arctic Day 08:52
Review by Tom King (c) 2022
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
https://tomkinguk.weebly.com/
This review could so easily turn into an environmental message from me too, but there is no point in that as the arguments over whether climate change, speeded up by man’s intervention, is real or not is no longer the discussion point. The real discussion point now is how severe will this already happening climate change affect us all both environmentally and financially, and what are the limited tools at our disposal to at best slow this change down until we have better ways of dealing with this global crisis. Anyone who is still looking the other way on this issue is simply going to have to face the overwhelming evidence of large amounts of scientific data sooner rather than later. The data is out there for anyone to read, so this review is instead concentrating on the music and the event itself.
To separate scientific data from the music of “Light Water is Black Water” is impossible as it is this very data which Michael Begg has used as his source material for his music and here, each of the main strands of data collected by Arctic climate scientists to measure the changes in ice, water, air pressure and other variables has been given a specific “voice” by Michael through his music, and this work is, in a way, this scientific data talking directly to us through the media of music. It was also interesting to hear from Michael himself why this work is titled “Light Water is Black Water” and like so many other things in this world, it is a matter of perspective. If you are viewing the Arctic waters from a height above them then they look black, but if you are viewing those same waters from underneath them and coming up to the surface then they look white.
For this project Michael Begg has created a wonderful soundscape that evokes not only the almost overwhelming natural power of nature of the Arctic, but also the incredible fragility of the whole chain of events that allows all of this beautiful magic to function properly, and you cannot listen to this music and watch the accompanying visuals and not be aware that man’s interference is breaking this fragile chain. Yes, nature as always will adapt and survive, it works on a timescale that we cannot comprehend and it works in ways that we are only now starting to understand in the most basic of ways. Nature will survive our man- made changes to it, but mankind will not unless we change our ways and how we interact with our global systems on this planet.
This was not an entirely electronic composition and the use of traditional instrumentation made a fine blend of old and new ways of making music. The Black Glass Ensemble are: Michael Begg (score, samples, data feeds, erosions); Ben Ponton (receivers, recordings, forensics); Clea Friend (cello); Aisling O’Dea (violin); Julia Lungu (violin); Neil Cuthbertson (trumpet); Jen Cuthbertson (French horn); and Douglas Caskie (tuned percussion).
Ocean ARTic are, as I say, looking at new ways to get their message over to a new audience and events like this are certainly one of many ways to do this as they allow information to be absorbed by people in a completely different fashion to simply presenting data charts and statistics. Sadly, with the best will in the world, the latter can switch many people off to the message that it is carrying. I hope this message, and Michael Begg’s music find a way to reach many more people, but it is perhaps ironic that this performance was in The Queen’s Hall which is a former church, and I suspect that many, if not all, of the people in the audience tonight have been long ago converted to the message of climate change.
The music from Light Water Is Black Water is also available as a CD
TRACK LISTING
1. Invocation 04:16
2. Data February 09:00
3. The Arctic Night 08:50
4. Air Pressure Anomaly in January 06:32
5. Spring Bloom in May 09:24
6. Data July 07:36
7. The Arctic Day 08:52
Review by Tom King (c) 2022
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
https://tomkinguk.weebly.com/
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