BRIDGE BETWEEN THE EARTH AND SKY
For more information, and for scores and parts, please visit the Canadian Music Centre.
Title: Bridge Between the Earth and Sky
Year Completed: 2025
Duration: 7 mins
Instrumentation: String Quartet
Credits: Commissioned by the Northern Tornados Project and the New Orford String Quartet.
Premiered by the New Orford String Quartet, May 5 2025, London, Ontario, Ivy Business School, Western University
Program note:
you are a bridge between the earth and sky
you don’t exist until we touch and fly
for a moment take me with you
After fascinating discussions with researchers from the Northern Tornados Project (thanks Areez and co!), and a mulling on my own personal connections to tornados (probably less-than-average considering I live in a place far enough north that it’s unlikely to have seen a tornado in a long time, but who knows in the fast-changing future how long that might last…)… I landed on these ideas to bring into my words above, which became the source of the music of Bridge Between the Earth and Sky:
- A tornado isn’t a tornado until it touches the ground - it needs that connection to the earth for it to be scientifically called a tornado. (Before that it’s just a funnel cloud, for all my fellow word-nerds).
- Tornados come from thunderstorms, and thunderstorms are stronger than anything around them.
- If you look at a tornado from far away, or slow it down with your imagination, or use technology to slow down video footage, there’s a grace to it within its huge power (kind of like watching really heavy-duty construction vehicles)
- Tornados are not evil, they’re just a part of weather. And habitat that’s destroyed by tornados in places where there are no humans is still habitat for some living creature.