An Arctic soundscape fills a room inside the Jefferson Market Library in New York’s Greenwich Village. Various instruments—a keyboard, a soprano saxophone, an experimental prototype soundboard, percussion and a waterphone (a jagged metal instrument that creates tenuous and haunting resonances)—re-create the sounds of glaciers and chilly winds. Only the din of traffic outside reminds us that we are still in New York.
The sounds of the Arctic, captured firsthand, are re-created here every month for a unique and ever-changing performance by composer and sound artist Mary Edwards, called “Soundscapes for Invisible Architecture / Everywhere We Are is the Farthest Place.”
The music begins with the splash of a glacier calving, and leads into ice clinking and cascading down a glacial form. Arctic winds accompany the sound of ice tumbling into the sea, followed by the sounds of the waves that emerge upon impact. Jazz saxophonist Michael Eaton keys into the melody emanating from Edwards’ synthesizer. The soundscape they create exists in layers, and builds out from there.
Edwards creates a space for others to interact with and contribute to the performance as audience members are invited to pick from the host of instruments on the table. On one recent evening, Edwards placed a microphone over her heart, creating a percussive foundation for the ensuing improvisation between herself and Eaton. At other performances, she has invited members of the audience to come up and feature their own heartbeats. No two performances are the same as each iteration is shaped by the audience and environment.
The piece has been performed in the Church of Sag Harbor in Long Island for the Hamptons Jazz Fest, at Epsilon Spires in Vermont and—returning to the space where the project originated—in a performance venue in Longyearbyen, Svalbard.
In 2022, Edwards journeyed to Svalbard as an artist-in-residence at the Arctic Circle Residency, and sailed above the 78th parallel. This undertaking was a long-held dream: “When I was about 12, I asked my parents for a subscription to National Geographic for a birthday present, and when the first issue came it was on the Arctic,” she says. “I was transfixed by this one photograph of a group of researchers in a Zodiac boat at the beginning of exploration. I envisioned myself in that boat and thought that I would love to do that someday.”
For Edwards, the purpose for this journey was to listen to and record the sound properties of glacial geology and oceanographic data. She recorded phenomena by submerging hydrophones underwater, reaching depths of up to 90 feet. Working at sea and on land, she captured sounds through levels and layers of freezing, icy water. “Submerged icebergs shifting,” Edwards says. “Things you won’t hear on the surface.” Later, she lightly processed the field recordings, and composed her own music over them. She sought out similar tonalities and accompanied the natural sounds on her synthesizer with percussion and using her waterphone.
What does it sound like when a melting glacier calves and crashes into the sea? “Like fireworks… muted fireworks, in the distance. When one glacier calves, you’ll hear off in the distance this corresponding calving…in a sense it’s like a call and response of eruptions,” she says. Hearing the glaciers’ meltwater channels pouring into the sea is “like listening to traffic in a sense, aqueous traffic…plates of ice moving around.”
Jonathan Kingslake, associate professor at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at the Columbia Climate School, who is currently researching the effects of glacial meltwater on ice sheet dynamics, explained how this shifting and melting occurs. One way is that, as the surface ice melts, the water flows directly into the ocean. Another way, he said, is that melted water can flow through fractures and conduits towards the base of the glacier. The speed of that flow fluctuates, and if enough water accumulates at the base, it can change the water pressure and decelerate the rate of the flow of the glacier itself.
At the end of each performance, a Q&A session allows audience members to ask questions about the performance, share interpretations and learn more about Edwards’ time in the Arctic.
During Edwards’ travels, a colleague suggested that her music was an “elegy,” a mournful response to the reality of loss and change. But Edwards believes the piece is joyful and that “Everywhere We Are” is an ode to the Arctic. When the glacier calves, “they cause these really beautiful eruptions in the water both sonically and visually, as waves curl up at the base of the glacier,” she says.
During her residency, a glacier calved when one of Edwards’ colleagues had ventured onto a flat iceberg off shore. Edwards soon noticed a “tiny little wave” had grown enormous and was rapidly approaching her colleague, bearing blocks of ice. Fortunately, one of the expedition guides was able to intervene in time, swiftly returning her to safety on land.
Edwards describes the glacier that calved into sea as “one of the most beautiful sounds,” and she marvels at the curve of the wave it created. She recognizes the potential for beauty amid destruction, and says that “nature should not be defied.” Survival in the Arctic is a collaborative effort—much like the soundscapes and interactive environments Edwards builds with her performances.
For more information on upcoming performances, visit Mary Edwards’ website or the New York Public Library Jefferson Market Library’s events page.
