The Language of Landscapes
About the Work
The Language of Landscapes is an exploration of our relationship with nature. The piece’s principal discourse is guided by the friction and/or harmony created by synthetic and natural objects and the sounds and ideals that accompany their existence. The single-movement work has four scenes that each incorporate found discarded objects, field-collected environmental recordings, and live electronic processing as a way of making commentary on our wastefulness and resourcefulness. We have arrived at an era of human history in which our relationship with nature is critical, and likely calamitous, and this work is ultimately an attempt to illuminate the importance of the geographies of our existence and how they shape our musical spirit.
- Christopher Stark
This commission has been made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Chamber Music America Endowment Fund. This project was further supported by Avaloch Farm Music Institute
For this album, Stark has commissioned radical remixes of The Language of Landscapes from a diverse subset of artists working in different genres: Malitzin Cortes (CNDSD), Mvstermind, Chris P. Thompson, and Adult Fur. These remixes re-contextualize the electronic processing in The Language of Landscapes while also reflecting Stark’s community and wide-ranging listening practice.
Mastered Audio [mp3]
Language of Landscapes Remixes
more information
The Language of Landscapes is a work for cello, percussion, and electronics that activates a unique sonic palette to address our climate crisis through a deeply personal lens.
Combining acoustic sounds with non-recyclable objects, field recordings, and pop-influenced digital processing, Stark comments on human wastefulness and resourcefulness while illuminating the importance of the geographies of our existence and how they shape our musical spirit.
Commissioned in 2014 by New Morse Code (Hannah Collins, cello; Michael Compitello, percussion), The Language of Landscapes was developed collaboratively over a number of residencies and performances, including visits to personally meaningful locations around the country to listen and collect field recordings together. This joint exploration crystalized Stark’s new artistic practice, particularly in his use of field recordings in the compositional process, and a bold sound combining symbolic and sonic heft.
Though years of performances and workshops, Stark and New Morse Code have used the tools of sonic placemaking to engage communities in purposeful conversations about climate action.
Studio recording with visual art by Andrew Lucia
About the Composer
Christopher Stark (b. 1980, St. Ignatius, MT) is a composer of contemporary classical music deeply rooted in the American West. Having spent his formative years in rural western Montana, his music is always seeking to capture the expansive energy of this quintessential American landscape. Stark, whose music The New York Times has called, "fetching and colorful," has been awarded prizes from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Fromm Foundation at Harvard, Chamber Music America, ASCAP, and the Barlow Endowment. Named a 2017 "Rising Star" by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, his music has been performed by such ensembles as Alarm Will Sound, Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, BIT20 Ensemble, Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, Momenta Quartet, Unheard-of//Ensemble, No Exit New Music Ensemble, and New Morse Code.
In 2012, he was a resident composer at Civitella Ranieri, a fifteenth-century castle in Umbria, Italy, and in June of 2016 he was awarded a residency at Copland House. Recent highlights included performances at the 2016 Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and at the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of the 2016 NY Phil Biennial. In 2018, he was in residence in Bergen, Norway where he worked with musicians from the Bergen Philharmonic, and in 2020, he was in residence at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy as the Aaron Copland Fellow in Music. His score for the feature-length film, "Novitiate," premiered at Sundance in January of 2017 and was theatrically released by Sony Pictures Classics. His debut CD, Seasonal Music, was released in 2019 on Bridge Records.
Performance History
April 8, 2022
Hamilton Family Recital Hall, University of Denver, Denver, CO
April 6, 2022
Sears Recital Hall, University of Dayton, Dayton, OH
April 3, 2022
Lied Center of Kansas, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
March 31, 2022
Kenan Auditorium, University of North Carolina Wilmington, Wilmington, NC
March 30, 2022
Virginia Arts Festival
Chandler Recital Hall, F. Ludwig Diehn Center for the Performing Arts
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA
November 4, 2021
Auer Hall, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Bloomington, IN
October 30, 2021
Salem Middle School, Salem IN
with IU Center for Rural Engagement
January 14, 2020
The Loft Cinema, Tucson, AZ
August 30, 2019
University of Kansas Humanities in the Wild, Sunflower Outdoor and Bike, Lawrence, KS
June 8, 2019
Re:Sound Festival, Cleveland, OH
October 29, 2017
Werner Recital Hall, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Cincinnati, OH
June 14, 2017
Geneva Music Festival, Gearan Center for the Performing Arts at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY
October 24, 2016
Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
July 12, 2016
Historic Park-McCullough Governor’s Mansion, Bennington, VT
May 22, 2016
Concerts on the Slope, St. John's Episcopal Church, Brooklyn, NY
November 2, 2015
DUC Chamber Music Series, Goldberg Formal Lounge, Danforth University Center, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
World Premiere Performance
August 1, 2015
Avaloch Farm Music Institute, Boscawen, NH
Preview Performance
June 9-15, 2015
Geneva Music Festival, Gearan Center for the Performing Arts at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY
Preview Performance and Workshop
May 18, 2015
Chamber Music America Showcase, Bryant Park, New York, NY
Preview Performance
