Pine Chant

Pine Chant (2021)

Lachlan Skipworth

for reed trio and electronics

Sara Fraker, English horn

Jackie Glazier, clarinet

Marissa Olegario, bassoon

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Inspired by tree-ring growth data from the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research (LTRR), this piece is a sonic embodiment of twelve Arizona trees and an emotional response to climate crisis. Dr. Margaret Evans (dendroecologist, LTRR faculty) and Dr. Kelly Heilman (postdoctoral research associate) provided scientific direction on the project, guiding our work with USDA Forest Service census data to explore themes of forest resilience and tree growth synchronicity within the context of the warming Anthropocene. Tree-ring growth measurement sequences were selected for three species: Pseudotonga menziesii (Douglas fir), Pinus edulis (Colorado pinyon), and Pinus ponderosa (Ponderosa pine). These data, which record growth in Arizona trees as far back as 1772, were used to control various musical parameters of rhythm and texture. Skipworth’s lyricism is exquisitely rendered through an electronic “aura” of acoustic sounds created by our wind instruments—resonances made with human breath, cane grasses, and the bodies of trees. The collaboration was designed by oboist Sara Fraker, whose creative work often explores intersections of ecology and music. Pine Chant has been presented in live performance at the LTRR, UArizona Center for Creative Photography (in coordination with their interdisciplinary exhibit, trees stir in their leaves), Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, UArizona School of Music, and the 2022 Conference of the International Double Reed Society.This project is a collaboration by the UArizona School of Music, School of Art, and Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. It was made possible by a UArizona Production Faculty Seed Grant and the College of Fine Arts Fund for Excellence.Pine Chant has been featured in the Environment section of the Arizona Republic, front page of the Arizona Daily Star, and a recent episode of For the Wild podcast. The composition was named "Work of the Year – Chamber Music" by the 2023 APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards.

score video

audio

University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research

premiere concert, University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. Sara Fraker, Jackie Glazier, Marissa Olegario

in the media

For The Wild podcast

Arizona Republic

UA News: Project Q&A

composer's note

Pine Chant (2021) all we had to do was put our ears to the trees and listen very carefully —Valerie Trouet, Tree Story Responding to this quote from dendrochronologist Valerie Trouet, Pine Chant represents a kind of tree-listening of my own. I composed music to align with the rhythms of annual tree growth, drawing on a set of data shared with me by the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. But the work also reflects my own lived experience amidst the current climate uncertainty, as heard in the deep sadness pervading the harmonic cycles upon which I mapped the tree data.Each of the work’s three sections deals with a particular tree species: Colorado pinyon, Ponderosa pine, and Douglas fir. I used the annual growth data to control various musical parameters including the temporal placement, density or length of the instrumental gestures. For the most part this plays out over a floating sonic landscape abstracted by the use of reverb, echo and distortion in the electronics. But in the faster third section of the work the sonification becomes more explicit: I wanted the listener to hear the changing climate.Noticing a declining trend in the annual growth of Arizona’s Douglas Fir population across the twentieth century, I mapped this data to the space between each musical gesture (in this case rapidly falling arpeggios). The reduced growth over time creates an increasingly frantic texture as the gestures become closer together. We can also notice a greater synchronisation between the three instruments, and their coming together in rhythmic unison at the climax is for me symbolic: nature’s messaging is loud, clear and urgent.In the work’s final moments, I added into the electronics the “voice” of another Douglas Fir dating from 1772, by far the oldest tree in the data set. These bell-like sonorities above the trio’s sustained chord hark back to a time before industrialisation. And I can’t help but think that the footprint of humanity is there in the trees, and it is upon all of us to listen, and to act.— Lachlan SkipworthTrouet, Valerie. Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings. p. 89. © 2020 Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission of Johns Hopkins University Press.

about the data

Pine Chant features tree-ring growth data from twelve individual Arizona trees, representing three species: Pinus edulis (Colorado pinyon), Pinus ponderosa (Ponderosa pine), and Pseudotonga menziesii (Douglas fir). This data is visualized in the images below. (Courtesy Dr. Kelly Hielman)

tree-ring data, dendrochronology, tree art, tree music

Many thanks to the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program for allowing us to use tree-ring data collected in the FIA’s forest monitoring plot network.The FIA Program collects, analyzes, and reports information on the status, trends, and condition of America’s forests. Phase 1 of this program collects data in the form of aerial photographs and satellite imagery. Phases 2 and 3 are accomplished in the field using a fixed plot design, which consists of a cluster of four circular subplots spaced out in a fixed pattern (see .This plot design is used to collect data at one field sample site for every 6000 acres of US forestland. Field crews collect data on forest type, site attributes, tree species, tree size, and overall tree condition on accessible forest land. A subset of Phase 2 sample plots are measured for a broader suite of forest health attributes. These attributes include tree crown conditions, lichen community composition, understory vegetation, down woody debris, and soil attributes. There is approximately one Phase 3 plot for every 96,000 acres of US forestland.—Excerpted from FIA Sampling and Plot Design Fact Sheet by Bill Burkman, USDA Forest Service, 2005.

research

Dr. Margaret Evans and Dr. Kelly Heilman of the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research provided scientific direction for the project. Explore the links below to learn more about their research on dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), climate, and forest resilience.
Heilman, K. et al. 2022. Ecological forecasting of tree growth: Regional fusion of tree-ring and forest inventory data to quantify drivers and characterize uncertainty. Global Change Biology. 28: 2442–2460.This research, which utilizes Pinus ponderosa core data featured in Pine Chant, was highlighted in several recent media stories: • Eos science news: Tree Carbon Data That Ring True• Hearst Media primetime Earth Day special: Inside America's 'Forest Census'• Tucson's KVOA news: UArizona researchers predict a decine in tree growth• UArizona News: Future forests will have smaller trees and soak up less carbon, study suggestsRelated journal articles Klesse, S. et al. 2018. Sampling bias overestimates climate change impacts on forest growth in the southwestern United States. Nature Communications. 9:5336.Schultz, E. et al. 2022. Climate-driven, but dynamic and complex? A reconciliation of competing hypotheses for species’ distributions. Ecology Letters. 25:38–51.Evans, M. et al. 2021. Adding Tree Rings to North America’s National Forest Inventories: An Essential Tool to Guide Drawdown of Atmospheric CO2. Bioscience.Giebink, C. et al. 2022. The policy and ecology of forest‐based climate mitigation: challenges, needs, and opportunities. Plant and Soil.Giebink, C. et al. 2022. Climatic sensitivities derived from tree rings improve predictions of the Forest Vegetation Simulator growth and yield model. Forest Ecology and Management. 517:120256.
Further readingTree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings by Valerie Trouet, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020. Hearing the Language of Trees by Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, excerpted in Yes! Magazine (Oct 29, 2021).Published in The Mind of Plants: Narratives of Vegetal Intelligence, ed. John C. Ryan, Patricia Viera and Monica Galiano, Synergetic Press, 2021.

original digital art posters

University of Arizona art students designed original art posters to represent each individual tree in the data set. Inspired by botanical illustration, the posters include data points on tree location, identification number, diameter, elevation, growth pattern, species, stand density, and the wind instrument voicing that tree's data.Artists were graduate and undergraduate students in Dr. Kelly Leslie's Fall 2021 Digital Illustration class at the University of Arizona School of Art. The art was exhibited in the gallery of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research Bannister Building during our series of premiere concerts in December 2021. Many thanks to these artists for their beautiful designs!