Imperiled Sea is a contemplation of the seemingly paradoxical relationship between humanity and the oceans. It is both a lament for the sea and an alarm bell – a call to action. Overfishing, reckless offshore drilling accidents, toxic industrial runoff, excessive carbon emissions, overproduction and poor waste management of disposable plastics, these have been our contributions to the seas. We have polluted ocean waters and ravaged marine ecosystems. The natural, thriving state of the sea has become increasingly disfigured by our influence. Almost as if in retaliation, rising ocean temperatures increase the frequency and severity of devastating coastal flooding and catastrophic weather events. Thus, as we continue to threaten the sea, we threaten our own existence. This is unsustainable.

“Imperiled Sea” is scored for chamber orchestra with fixed media. The fixed media serves to expand the sonic landscape beyond that which is possible to create with acoustic instruments alone. Rather than relying on a click track, “Imperiled Sea” uses custom-designed software built in Max/MSP to create a flexible realization of the fixed media in real time during performance. Each of the electronic sound events is individually triggered by a dedicated electronics performer. The fixed media was chiefly prepared using RTcmix, a musical programming language. Many of the sounds originated as recordings of water in various forms. Samples from this source material have been distorted through digital manipulation into abstractions of their former selves. Additional sonic events were generated by subjecting recordings of other physical sound sources to a series of complex computer processes involving temporal and frequency manipulation, convolution, and spectral delay; thereby creating “watery” textures artificially. During performance, the electronic and acoustic sounds merge to create an immersive, augmented sonic experience.