Polar Pearls
Concerto for Chamber Orchestra
Pohjoiset helmet
Description
(…) when they come
they will find this land, us
and we are stones, plants, animals, fishes
water, wind, earth, sky (…)
Nils-Aslak Valkeapää (translated by Ralph Salisbury and Harald Gaski)
The Arctic regions have warmed much faster than the rest of the world
as climate change advances. Many endangered Arctic species, such as the
freshwater pearl mussel and the snowy owl, are now endangered. A poem
by Nils-Aslak Valkeapää views his fellow Sámi – indigenous dwellers of
the Arctic zone – as such an inseparable part of their environment that
the border between Man and Nature ceases to exist. Eyes are turning more
and more towards the indigenous peoples as the environmental
destruction caused by climate change proceeds: we are, maybe
instinctively, looking to them in our search for a new model as we
realise that our lifestyle and overconsumption are destroying not only
Nature but us, too.
The Concerto for Chamber Orchestra Polar Pearls is like a
bracelet of little character movements – tributes to our unique Arctic
Nature and its delicate balance. I have dedicated the concerto to John
Storgårds and the Lapland Chamber Orchestra, giving the gems in its
ranks each in turn a chance to shine.
- Outi Tarkiainen, 2023
Instrumentation
1111 1000 01, str [afl, bcl]
CategoryWorks for Orchestra or Large Ensemble
Premiere
Lapland Chamber Orchestra, John Storgårds, cond, June 1, 2023, Salla, Finland
Commisioned by / dedicationsCommissioned by Lapland Chamber Orchestra
