Program Notes
 

Movement 1: What The Trees Are

At the Crosby Farm Regional Park, the Resilience of Urban Forests team is running a 20-year study on the climate resilience of native trees amongst 3-climate zones looking at the trees among the categories of resistance, resilience, and transition. This opening movement celebrates what the trees are; structured by the life stages of a growing tree from a sprout to seedling and sapling up to mature and ancient trees. When the melody comes in the different instruments, they sing the names of the trees, becoming thicker, lusher, and developing roots over time, moving from one zone to another. In the final ancient tree section, the texture thins again as a sprout emerges from the remains of its ancestors. 
 

Movement 2: Bombus!

The Effectiveness of Pollinator Habitat team is looking at the effectiveness of bee lawns and examining the correlation between pollinators and plant diversity. Since the study began, they have found 12 species of Bombus, or bees, which form the basis of the 12 sections of the movement. Tying together the past and present, the melody is derived from the 1901 song “Tale of the Bumblebee” and utilizes many of the features in other bee-centric music; chromaticism, tremolos, polyrhythms, and rollicking, rolled chords. This movement celebrates the possibilities of what one lawn can hold for an insect that has been an inspiration for centuries.

 

Movement 3: What The Trees Do

When meeting with the Functioning of Urban Watersheds team, the words used to describe their work was purpose, partnership, and reciprocation; a constant process of the work of trees was quietly in the background, almost unnoticeable. However, when an aspect of that work disappears or changes, it is immediately noticeable. This movement tries to capture that description and the multiple years spent taking data analyzing the effects of trees and the levels of Nitrogen and Phosphorus entering the watersheds of the Twin Cities, as well as incorporating their results with previous measurements taken. This takes an overview of their data over the course of a year, bringing back a tree motive from the first movement and having motives of Nitrogen and Phosphorus being played in proportion to the amount they enter the watershed, all over a constant, forward moving process. 

 

Movement 4: Vast Areas

The Impacts of the Urban Lakes and Streams team spans the vast area of sampling for their research into “how urbanized water bodies work and their interaction with governance and use”. The fourth movement is structured by the categories of the sampling moving from stormwater and streams to ponds and lakes with layers of rhythmic pulses interacting. Throughout each section, harmonic language offers the possibilities for these interactions, from the rising levels of chloride due to road salt to the effectiveness of alum treatments.

 

Movement 5: Contaminated Movement

Trophic levels take over in this stylized rondo, as the Ecological Impacts of Urban Contaminants team researches how urban contaminants move from one level to the next. Moving from water to soil to plants to insects and their predators, the cycle starts small and keeps growing. The MSP-LTER theme, which has only been hinted at in previous movements, emerges in its entirety, interrupting each section. Echoes of previous movements are becoming more prevalent with variations of water and tree transitions creating the themes of their trophic level. 

 

Movement 6: Tangled Webs of History

The Coupling Between Urban Nature Investments and Wealth team’s movement traces the history of urban planning starting in the 1800s. Each of the interconnected sections correspond to a pivotal moment which created today’s urban landscape, from racial covenants to article 34 to redlining to the fair housing act. Humanity’s theme takes the stage in the bass, interacting with the previously established nature motives, weaving between consonance and dissonance (and more dissonance) as the threads of sound become tangled.

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Movement 7: A Contentious Assemblage of Chickens

The Governance in Environmental Policies and Practices team’s description starts as thus – “although much is known about policies and practices that might protect the environment, the effectiveness of these policies and why some communities adopt them while others do not is unclear”. In exploring these phenomena for City Limits: Urban Nature Rules and the Role of Civic Engagement in Minneapolis—St. Paul Metro Area, they cite a 2023 Brooklyn Park Public hearing looking at a proposed ordinance change allowing four hens at residential properties. This movement is a transcription of that public hearing – a presentation of facts, public comments, councilmember debate, and a closing statement - exploring an hour and a half of rising irritation and back-and-forth, and showcases that sometimes no matter how much public support there is for a positive program, a few individuals can still stop it in its tracks.

 

“First reading of an Ordinance to Amend Chapter 92, Chapter 94 and Chapter 152 of the City Code to Allow for the Keeping of Four Hen Chickens on Single and Two-Family Properties” forms the basis of the rhythm with the snare drum being “pro-chicken”, the cymbal being “anti-chicken”, and the two are combined when the speaker is on the fence. The balance between the two instruments correlates to how each character leans.

 

Movement 8: The Urban Ecosystem

The final movement’s title was almost “A Tale of Possibility” as it steps away from the data and instead is an imagining of the future that is possible when we take what we have learned from the past, from scientists, from local experts, and apply that knowledge to create a better world. While it starts in a bleak place, we move away from despair and start the work for our future generations. The music from the previous seven movements play with each other in new ways until humanity and nature’s motives converse together.