April 22, 2020 will mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and the birth of the modern environmental movement. To mark this important milestone Philippe Tortell (UBC Oceanography), Chris Chafe (Stanford University, Music) and Jonathan Girard (Conductor of the UBC Orchestra) are embarking on a collaborative project to produce a major new musical work, entitled the Earth Symphony. The musical score will be composed, using the process of sonification, where numerical data are converted to sonic representations.
We are a group of 9 undergraduate students from EOAS collaborating on this project in the ENVR 448a Directed Study to help access and analyze wide-ranging environmental data sets. As part of this project, we also hope to produce some written interpretative materials to serve as an educational resource to accompany the Earth Symphony.