Global warming: Composer plays gloveless on Arctic glacier
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The Italian minimalist Ludovio Einaudi has teamed up with Greenpeace to draw attention to melting glaciers.
He said: Being here has been a great experience. I could see the purity and fragility of this area with my own eyes and interpret a song I wrote to be played in the best stage in the world. It is important that we understand the importance of the Arctic, stop the process of destruction and protect it.
Afterwards, he sold a 16 fridge-freezers and a used Steinway to passing Eskimos.
Couldn’t he be persuaded to play without hands?
I thought it was Liberace at first. All that’s missing is the furs.
It is great that such a musician warns us about melting glaciers, a phenomenon that nobody has ever noticed before. It means that minimal music has finally found a raison d’être.
Fatuous comments aside, the continuing deterioration of nature in parts of the world due to global warming is nowhere more obvious I think than in the Arctic. Although not quite that far north, I was appalled to learn from President Obama’s speech in Yosemite National Park the other day – and later verified by the National Park Service – that Glacier Bay not far from Juneau will likely have no glaciers by 2020. When I visited in 1990 there were 17.
Through this moving sincere performance Ludovico seers my mind with this visual and musical statement which will stay with me as a permanent reminder of the damage and need for protection of the fragile and vitally important Artic. Thank you Ludovico and Greenpeace.
We now return you to our regularly scheduled chronicle of multi-continental careers of artistes.
How much greenhouse gas was released transporting the pianist, his piano and crew to this location? How much greenhouse gas does this guy release pursuing his career, which requires extensive travel? Just wondering…
(Side note: One should not get science information from Mr. Obama. Glacier Bay was habitable until about 300 years ago. The current Glacier advanced rapidly into the Bay around 1750 – according the NPS’s own Glacier Bay website. The ebb and flow of glaciers there is quite natural and not necessarily indicative of broader climate developments.)
Ssshh. Don’t be such a heretic; don’t interfere with the belief systems of others, particularly when they’ve developed to such evangelical levels. The mystic sitting at the piano is simply worshiping at the alter of “climate change”, the new international guru of which is Al Gore.
It’s true; human beings do need a deity after all.
You are quite correct in what you write – but you omit one key factor. As the NPS site says “Looming in the distance, a great glacier sits dormant, pausing before the cataclysmic advance that will force these people from their homes around 1750.” By the time George Vancouver discovered it in the 1790s that one massive wall of ice had advanced to the mouth of the Bay itself and was estimated to be up to 20 miles wide and more than half a mile thick. Since then, it has retreated and spawned smaller glaciers. The point is, though, that by 2020, according to the NPS, there will almost certainly be no glaciers left! This is not a natural “ebb and flow” of glaciers. This is the total disappearance of what was one giant glacier.
Nice bit of self-promotion and it’s good that a minimalist musician only has one Audi. Seriously, though, what was the point of this creating this monstrous carbon footprint?
How many baby polar bears and seal cubs did he asphyxiate from the carbon output of hauling a piano that far? Murderer!
Any stunt to cover up complete lack of content. The first comment is wicked but funny.
Living in AK, we have seen first hand the decline of glaciers right in our own backyards. I appreciate the publicity stunt. Did not especially care for the attempt at humor about selling refrigerators to passing “Eskimos” – it is an oldie but not such a goodie.