Coming Stillness of Wind

Matthew Burtner is an Alaskan-born composer and sound artist whose music explores embodiment, ecoacoustics and noise. Burtner currently teaches composition and computer music at the University of Virginia, where he also chairs the Music Department, and directs the environmental arts non-profit organization, EcoSono. His scintillating works engage both ears and minds, using the rich soundscape of our environment to raise awareness of the planet’s fragility and transient beauty. The Coming Stillness of Wind was commissioned for the 2017 Staunton Music Festival. Burtner adds the following notes:

The movement of air as wind from high to low pressure areas is directly proportional to differences in temperature. In our time of rapid global warming, the poles warm more quickly than the equator. One consequence of this lower temperature differential is the global reduction of wind speed, a phenomenon scientists call “global stillness”.
The wind is the breath of the planet, and humans have long thought of the wind as an expression of human breath and life, connecting the force of the world to the human spirit. This piece is an elegy for the wind. A consequence of global stillness is the increase of bursts of violent storms. The music uses a compositional model of global wind and also models the accelerating bursts of micro storms that violently disrupt the planet.

(c) Jason Stell & Matthew Burtner