Several of my coworkers and I attended the 2019 conference of the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the Association for College and Research Libraries: Response & Responsibility: Special Collections and Climate Change.  The conference had a strong effect on us, showing the dire need for awareness of climate change and the impact it has all over the world including on library and archival material. We all agreed the path forward was taking action of some kind. 

We resolved to raise awareness of climate change and environmentalism by setting up an exhibit at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Originally to have opened in time for Earth Day on April 22, the pandemic situation has postponed the exhibit until a future date. (Ironically, the cessation of fuel-burning activity due to the pandemic has made people realize that it is possible to alter the activities that cause environmental degredation. )

But all is not lost!

In preparation for the exhibit, I selected a number of musical works from the online Naxos Music Library (to which the New York Public Library subscribes) that relate to climate change and environmentalism. I’m happy to announce that the kind folks at Naxos have made the playlist available to anyone with a New York Public Library card.

How to find the playlist

1. First log in to the Naxos Music Library on the New York Public Library's site using your library card number. 

If you want to use your phone you can download the Naxos Music Library (NML) app from the Google Play Store.  The appearance and behavior of the phone app is roughly the same as the desktop version illustrated below.

Once you've logged in, Naxos will take five seconds to redirect you to the new version of their website.

2. On the new version of the website, select Playlists (see the red arrow below).

Once you've selected Playlists, you should see the screen below (without the red arrow).  

As of this writing there's one one NYPL playlist, begining "Climate, Envrionmentalism, and the" [Performing Arts—Naxos limits how long the title can be]. The red arrow points to a small arrow next to the name of the playlist. If you click that small arrow, it will open up to reveal the playlist's full tracklist. Naxos's player is at the bottom of the screen; the first track will begin to play automatically. 

Alternatively, once you have logged into Naxos, you can go to the playlist directly:  http://bit.ly/climateplaylist

The solid blue headers provide the name of the works and their creators, and below them are the track listings.  To help understand why I've chosen these works, here's some commentary, most of it taken from the liner notes of the various albums (most of the album notes can be seen in Naxos).

Become Desert by John Luther Adams (2018)

Composer's note:  "While composing Become Ocean, I was haunted by the image of the melting of the polar ice and the rising of the seas. Now in my new home, far to the south, I’ve become aware of a very different manifestation of global warming—desertification. Rampant wildfires in California, the rapid evaporation of Lake Poopó in the Bolivian altiplano, deep droughts in the Sahel of Africa and in large parts of Australia are signs of what is to come. And as human population continues to explode, it seems likely that vast regions all over the earth will soon become desert. Become Desert is both a celebration of the deserts we are given and a lamentation of the deserts we create."

 

Become Ocean by John Luther Adams (2015)

Composer’s note: "Life on this earth first emerged from the sea. Today, as the polar ice melts and sea level rises, we humans face the prospect that we may once again, quite literally, become ocean."

Canticles of the Holy Wind by John Luther Adams (2013)

Composer’s note:  "Throughout my life, I’ve clung to hope for the future of our species. But amid the gathering darkness of our own making—global warming, terrorism and seemingly unending wars, widespread social and economic injustice, rampant greed and environmental destruction, resurgent racism and rising fascism—it’s increasingly difficult to maintain unmitigated faith in humanity. And I find myself reimagining hope. I don’t look for answers in political ideology, humanistic philosophy, or religious dogma. Instead I place my faith in the land and the skies, the wind and the birds—in what we call “nature”. And I take comfort in a larger vision of the earth and the universe, and my own small place in this beautifully fleeting moment within the endlessly turbulent and sublime music of creation."

Concerto for Viola and a Changing Environment by Gyula Csapó (2008)

Composer’s note: “I have featured the orchestra not as a unified mass but chamber-like, indeed as soloists. It is a viola concerto from the fact that the viola part runs through the piece like a red thread. I dreamt a rich instrumental environment around it, in which the viola fills its given role in so many illuminations. It is a travel companion throughout the piece, to which others join, who then ‘get off’ at certain points. Amidst this whirl, I wanted to present the duality of diversity and uniformity.”

The Boys of Summer by Michael Campbell and Don Henley (1984), arranged by Robert Thurston

While a song representing popular music may seem like an odd juxtoposition, this arrangement for band present a similar sound to the other works in this playlist. In his book “The Jukebox in the Garden,” David Ingram suggests that the music of Don Henley often embodies cultural contradictions. Much of popular music emerging from the 1970s was emblematic of the “Me Generation.” Yet Henley took an activist stance toward the environment, consumerism and other issues.  Ingram wrote that “The Boys of Summer” embodies these contradictions.

Atlas by Meredith Monk (1991)

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is proud to have Meredith Monk's archive which includes extensive materials on Atlas. First performed in 1991, the opera Atlas received a highly-regard production in 2019 directed by Yuval Sharon for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Interviewed by Victoria Looseleaf, Sharon said:  “One of the things I’d like to draw out of this production that is connected to our time...I feel like it’s a piece that does talk about the climate crisis. It’s all about the exploration of the earth by this young woman and her travel companions, and they go to visit landscapes — the arctic, the desert — communities based on agricultural cycles that are completely out of whack. It’s ultimately joyous and optimistic, but it does that through the lens of that sense of urgency that we’re on the brink of losing.”

“It’s so central to Meredith’s entire body of work,” added the director, “that humanity is a part of nature and it’s the one aspect of nature that has been at the core of many of her works — in its most epic expression. It’s truly a mythic experience, but it’s so grounded in nature that many of us are deeply concerned about. I’d like to emphasize that without taking away other layers, the supernatural and fantasy elements provide the work with relevance by drawing those connections to an environmental crisis. I might,” Sharon paused, “be putting more of an accent on that than Meredith did in 1991.”

On Behalf of Nature by Meredith Monk (2013)

From the liner notes: "I had been reading and thinking about ecology, climate change and how art could address these concerns. Believing in the universal healing power of music and that it speaks more directly than words, I worked to make a piece that had space for imagination and a fluid, perceptual field that could expand awareness of what we are in danger of losing. On Behalf Of Nature is a meditation on our intimate connection to nature, its inner structures, the fragility of its ecology and our interdependence.”

Clean Plates Don’t Lie by Richard Pearson Thomas (2010)

Program note by the composer:  “When Tobé Malawista, Artistic Director of the Mirror Visions Ensemble, asked me to compose something about “sustainable food”, I was initially at a loss. We toyed with the idea of having happy, organic lettuce and lambs sing; or with the idea of different food groups singing and coming together in a grand Food Fugue at the end, but nothing quite gelled for me. It wasn’t until Tobé sent me copies of menus from Blue Hill at Stone Barns that the idea for Clean Plates Don’t Lie began to click. The menus themselves are simple and elegant, listing the fresh ingredients from which the day’s meal will be prepared, divided into groups such as Greenhouse, Field, Foraged, etc. The names of the plants and animals are poetry in and of themselves, and Chef Dan Barber transforms them into culinary poetry. So I fashioned a cantata, interspersing sections of the menu as arias and choruses with short recitatives on the subject of sustainable food. I managed to get the fugue in there too.”  

The Environmental Symphony by Allan Zavod, text by Alan Finkel (2010)

Composer’s note: “The Environmental Symphony’s narrative and philosophical scope is vast, covering the formation of the planet, Earth’s gradual transition from molten hell to life-giving eden, the hubris of man in the industrial revolution, the ecological devastation of global warming, and an optimistic vision of a greener future.”