Kermadec

If the embedded video doesn't work, try this link: http://youtu.be/B0EMVaVP4KA

It's a rainy Saturday in Stavanger, and even though I was hoping to go exploring and post some pictures for you today of a nearby island, I don't think it would be smart to go walking for hours in the rain.

I'll share with you instead some music I wrote last spring, while I was on a research cruise in the south Pacific. We departed from Auckland, New Zealand, stopped at several sampling stations in the Kermadec Trench, and then ended the cruise in Samoa. The expedition was unfortunately plagued with mechanical problems and delays, so the scientific party had quite a bit of free time. I spent my time processing data and composing music, and I ended up writing a 4-movement string quartet about the cruise.

The first movement, "Kermadec," was intended as a soundtrack to an ROV dive, much like "Molloy," the second movement of my Arctic violin concerto, which I posted earlier. "Kermadec" has a little more anxiety woven into the sound, for several reasons. First, as I mentioned, we experienced significant equipment problems so it was never certain whether a mission would succeed, and second, because we were seeing animals on the screen that no human had ever observed before. The ROV van was filled with thick, pensive energy, which I express here in the first violin part.