When Kate Dickerson, Founder and Director of the Maine Science Festival, commissioned me to compose a musical work examining the effects of climate change in the Gulf of Maine and its destructive impact on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, I could not have imagined the scope of the journey upon which we were both about to embark. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of all the world’s oceans and I realized that, for the piece to be more than just an emotional response to an issue about which I knew very little beyond normal news consumption, it would be imperative for me to become better educated about global warming and the multitude of efforts being employed to head it off at the pass.

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Kate arranged a series of discussions for me with numerous scientists and town managers by which I might learn about their work as they focus on the ravages of climate change upon the environment, be it on land or on the ocean. Each interview was an invaluable contribution to a sort-of personal graduate-level seminar with every bit of information becoming wound into a fabric imprinted with patterns and images not yet in focus. How was I going to translate reams of data and experiences into musical notes — and to what end?

The answer came as a result of the multiple outreach visits we also made to middle school classes before I had written one note of the piece. We spoke to the students about climate science and the process of composing a new symphonic work. Towards the end of each session, I posed the question, “What would you, as the next generation, like the final message of this piece to be?” Across the board, it became clear the students wished the piece could inspire hope for their generation and future generations. This understanding became the basis for the message sung by the children as an anthem in the final moments of the work: “Hope begins with Truth.” In other words, accept the science and future generations might have a fighting chance against the rapidly encroaching disaster before us.

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With “hope” as the focal point, other elements of the work began falling in place. In addition to the children’s chorus, I felt it was important to include a chorus of women who take on the role of the mythological Sirens, luring unwitting sailors to their deaths on the rocks. In the context of the now-titled “The Warming Sea” however, the Sirens sing as climate change deniers whose alluring messages of complacency ensure an ultimate doom to those who listen. The Sirens sing these words in Greek, the language of the myth’s origin, and, with a contrary polarization of the “Truth,” their melody is the direct pitch inversion of the children’s anthem.

The central section of the work is two hundred measures in length in recognition of the State of Maine’s Bicentennial celebration. Every bar in this section represents a year of temperature variance in the Gulf of Maine (1820-2019) with the variances informing each measure’s pitch center. Certain historic events are illustrated musically in this progressive march of the years, including the introduction of the foghorn in 1859, 1938’s first peer-reviewed research paper on climate change, and, as the music builds in volume and rhythmic speed, the advent of the present millennium. Blasting forward into 2020, all the musical elements come to a full collision of forces as clanging harbor bells foreshadow the children’s appeal for hope. Both choruses join together for the final message, peering into the future with uncertainty as the work concludes upon the same unresolved chord with which the piece begins.

I am very grateful to all the scientists and other individuals whose work behind the scenes ultimately ensures we are able to continue our work in front of the scenes. I also offer a big thank you to the Maine Science Festival and the Bangor Symphony Orchestra for facilitating this collaboration and one that I hope will be a catalyst for discussion and action.