Music

ROSS SEA SUITES AND OTHER ANTARCTIC TONE POEMS

(Valmar Kurol & Michael Stibor)

The three Antarctic Sea Suites (Ross, Amundsen and Bellingshausen) are musical impressions of adjacent but distinctive seas. Ice-bound during the long winter season, the summer seas are portrayed here as mysterious, stormy, shimmering and unpredictable (Ross Sea), massively icy and thick with immense icebergs (Amundsen), and beautifully tranquil, blessed with marine life such as whales and birds (Bellingshausen). The remaining instrumental tracks are sketches of historical activities or interpretations of notable places in the Ross Sea area. The two bonus vocal tracks are a call for awareness about threats to the Antarctic environments.

1. The Ross Sea 5.10

The Ross Sea, named aft er British explorer James Ross who fi rst sailed to the area in 1841, is the southernmost ocean in the world, adjacent to Antarctica’s largest ice shelf, the Ross Ice Shelf. With relatively little ice during its summers, it served as the gateway to Antarctica and McMurdo Sound from Australia and New Zealand for the earliest explorations, and continues to do so for current expeditions. Its waters are largely unpolluted and very rich in nutrients for many species of wildlife, such as whales, seals, fi sh, penguins and birds. A current threat to the area is the already contentious and increasing fi shery industry for Antarctic toothfi sh. Environmental groups are trying to establish the Ross Sea as a marine protected area to prevent overfi shing, as well as to prevent ongoing whaling.

2. The Amundsen Sea 4.20

Adjacent to the Ross Sea is the largely ice-covered and rarely-travelled Amundsen Sea, named for famous Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. It is one of three major drainage areas for the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is bounded by the Weddell Sea to the east, the Ross Ice Shelf and the Amundsen Sea. Scientists think the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is unstable and at great risk of loss. The Amundsen Sea ice cover is at even greater risk and has been thinning signifi cantly, due to increased ocean water temperatures. There is also concern for overfi shing and depletion of certain species.

3. The Bellingshausen Sea 5.32

Further east of the Amundsen Sea, leading to the Antarctic Peninsula, is the Bellingshausen Sea, named aft er explorer Fabian von Bellingshausen, the Estonian Baltic German commander of a major Russian expedition to Antarctica in the 1820s. It is also an area of declining sea ice, and is thought to have potential as a large carbon dioxide sink, able to absorb large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.

4. The Dry Valleys 4.05

Meditative music for a peaceful, otherworldly and desiccated region, a desolate place, slightly spooky and beautiful, all at the same time. Located 60 miles west of McMurdo Station on McMurdo Sound, the rarely-visited Dry Valleys form the largest snowfree area in Antarctica, the driest region on earth and one of its extreme deserts. It is believed that almost no rain has fallen for two million years. Any moisture is quickly eaten up by fast-fl owing katabatic winds blowing down from the surrounding mountains. Carved out by retreating glaciers, the Valleys have a fl oor of weathered boulders and rock and the surrounding mountains hold back the polar ice sheets. Scientists consider the Dry Valleys to resemble Mars, for the study of extreme microorganisms.

5. Old Explorers’ Huts 4.34

Musical images of the explorers of the Heroic Era of Antarctic exploration, in their daily rounds and duties at their huts. The explorers’ spirits may still grace their stomping grounds and may break out from time to time in joyous impromptu dances. Early 1900s Ross Sea British-backed Antarctic expeditions by Carsten Borchgrevink (at Cape Adare), Ernest Shackleton (at Cape Royds) and Robert Scott (Cape Evans and Hut Point) left their wooden expedition huts as-is when they departed.  While these have now largely been restored, starting in the 1960s, the hut preservation and artefact conservation projects continue modestly. The huts are visited annually by the few tourists on Ross Sea cruises and by scientists and staff at McMurdo Sound.

6. Shirase’s Dash Patrol 4.11

Straight-ahead expeditionary music for Japanese explorer Nobu Shirase’s journey on the Ross Ice Shelf. The least known of the Ross Sea Heroic Era expeditions was the Japanese South Polar Expedition of 1910-12, led by Nobu Shirase, notably the only non-European one. Their fi rst season’s attempt at landing on the Antarctic coast was foiled by bad weather. The next season, they encountered Roald Amundsen’s expedition ship at the Ross Ice Shelf, which was awaiting the Norwegian team’s successful return from the South Pole. Shirase’s group docked at the Bay of Whales, the low point of the Ross Ice Shelf, climbed it and their ‘Dash Patrol’, as it was known, quickly advanced about 150 miles poleward on the Ice Shelf before bad weather forced their return. Their expedition was not marked by any noteworthy geographic or scientifi c discoveries, only for its pluckiness in getting to and from Antarctica in that early era of exploration.

7. Invasion of the King Crabs 2.28

Slightly creepy, humourous music for the recently identifi ed West Antarctic phenomenon of king crabs that are marching up the continental shelf. In recent years, marine biology researchers have increasingly noted large populations of king crabs off West Antarctica’s continental shelf. The crabs have always been there, in deeper, paradoxically warmer waters, so are not invaders. However, due to oceanic warming, the crabs may now be climbing up to shallower levels on the coastal shelf and could be potential predators, aff ecting other marine fauna in undetermined ways.

8. Transantarctic Mountain Climbing 3.39

Robust music for climbing or fl ying over the big mountains of the Transantarctic chain. The Transantarctic Mountains form one of the longest mountain ranges on Earth, stretching 2200 miles from Cape Adare in the Ross Sea, along McMurdo Sound and the Ross Ice Shelf towards the Weddell Sea. They form the boundary between the very diff erent structures of East and West Antarctica. Masses of East Antarctic glaciers fl ow through the Transantarctics to the Ross Sea area. The mountains were fi rst sighted by James Ross in 1841 and the most reachable parts of the range were explored in the Heroic Era of exploration in the early 1900s. It wasn’t until the late 1940s and 1950s that extensive aerial surveying allowed insight into the full extent of these vast mountains, whose bulk lies buried under ice.

9. Sunrise at Terra Nova Bay 4.28

Music for a very cold, crisp early morning, with icebergs in slushy, frozen coastal waters. The moment is brief, when pastel blues, yellows and pinks streak the dawn sky before the early sun starts to shimmer. Terra Nova Bay, along the Victoria Land coast on the margin of the Transantarctic Mountains, was named aft er Robert Scott’s 1901-04 Discovery Expedition relief ship. It is an ecologically rich coastal marine area, largely free of ice in the summer and is overlooked by Mount Melbourne, one of Antarctica’s few continental volcanoes. Nearby Cape Washington hosts one of Antarctica’s largest emperor penguin colonies on the sea ice during the winter. A large industrial-grade Italian research station and a small South Korean base are located on the Bay. China is also planning to open a new base here.

10. Churches of Antarctica 3.28

Music for those in spiritual refl ection, wherever they may be in Antarctica. For Michael Stibor, “It’s one thing to acknowledge these churches but the music needs an emotion to express.” He found his own inspiration for the track from the thought: “I have traveled far from home, and yet my God is near. For I have built a temple for which to worship Him, and praise Him for this beautiful land at the end of the world.” Antarctica has no permanent inhabitants and any cultures displayed at the bases by temporary scientists and support personnel refl ect their national backgrounds. Many bases have constructed buildings for religious services for their staff and also for neighbouring bases. At one recent count, there were at least seven of them in Antarctica and several others on subantarctic bases. The prettiest may be the Orthodox monastery, Trinity Chapel, at Russia’s Bellingshausen Station on the Antarctic Peninsula, and the largest, the multi-denominational Chapel of the Snows at the American base at the Ross Sea’s McMurdo Station. Other chapels have been built in shipping containers and as ice caves.

11. Stranded on the Ross Ice Shelf Blues 4.27

The polar version of swampy, bluesy music, for being stranded on a broken-off piece of the Ross Ice Shelf, not a pleasant thought. The Ross Ice Shelf is the largest ice shelf in Antarctica, oft en compared to the size of France. Almost 400 miles long along the Ross Sea side, its height above the sea can vary from 50 to 160 feet, with a total thickness of over 2400 feet where it joins the coastal glaciers that feed it. It is constantly calving and the largest known iceberg broke off in 2000, being larger than the area of Jamaica.

BONUS VOCAL TRACKS

12. Lost on You 5.24

(Michael Stibor and Shelsey Jarvis (music), Shelsey Jarvis and Valmar Kurol (lyrics))

A reproach against global warming and those doing damage to our environments. For Shelsey Jarvis, the song is “basically a plea to “the powers that be” to do something about global warming. To stop worrying about their money so much, because without our natural resource heritage, it won’t matter how much money they have – you can’t take it with you, as they say.”

Although Antarctica remains one of the most unspoiled regions on earth, dangers include climate change, increased fi shing (whether illegal or regulated), introduction of foreign species (accidental or through climate change), tourism, pollution, potential for exploitation of mineral/petroleum/biological resources, and impacts from increasingly larger-scale scientifi c and infrastructure operations.

For every mistake that you can’t take back, one more life is lost on you
For the lies you fake, promises you break
You are not fooling anyone
Breathe, you’ve got a chance to redeem yourself
Don’t throw it away
The money that you’re making won’t be of any use
Underwater
Face into the wind, be the change we need
Something’s gotta give
Could you live with all the choices you’ve chosen not to make
At the cost of all our lives?
For every degree of this blinding heat, the
warming’s slowly killing me
The sky is falling
You’re sitting there counting your wins
Are you happy to drown with us
As long as you’re holding your bills
You got what you came for
And left us to clean up your mess
Don’t you think for one moment that
You’ll get away with this
For every mistake that you can’t take back, one more life is lost on you
For the lies you fake, promises you break
You are not fooling anyone