New Day
written by Iman Habibi
This Composing Earth blog is supported by New Music USA and featured on NewMusicBox.
An essential component of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music's Climate Commitment, Composing Earth is a commissioning program for composers who recognize that climate change — climate disruption — is a bona fide civilizational emergency.
Composing Earth asks for a two-year commitment from Composer Alumni of GLFCAM. In the first year, composers receive a study stipend to participate in a monthly discussion group with peers, Gabriela, and renowned scholar/communicator of climate science (and music lover) Dr. Rob Davies. These meetings provide an opportunity to review articles, books, documentaries, and online resources regarding the climate crisis, allowing the composer time to find their own personal stories which inspire their commissioned work in the second year. Along the way, "weekly musings" are sent out every Wednesday by a member of the cohort to the full group. Some of these musings, whether in the form of personal letters and other times developed into soulful essays, are featured in the series below.
Originally shared as a Weekly Musing as part of the Composing Earth program
June 21, 2021
It has been years since I truly celebrated Norouz, the Persian new year, which welcomes the rebirth of nature with the spring equinox. Norouz is a remnant of a millennia-old Zoroastrian Iran, which in so many of its cultural and technological achievements, strove for the sustainable life we seek today. The architecture was ever so carefully designed to harness the power of nature (wind, sun, and water). The literature, going as far back as Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, makes clear a distinction between biaban (wilderness) and abadi (urban center), with the latter being shielded with a greenbelt, moistening the air, preventing the expansion of the desert, protecting people from the wildlife, and the wildlife from people. The avestan vision of pardis, from which the English word paradise was later derived, could be summarized as a walled reserve, in which an ideal equilibrium between humans, animals and plants could be achieved (read more on these here, if interested).
The spirit of this celebration got lost on me somewhere along the process of immigration, and while the tradition is alive, its powerful symbolism seems lost on much of the Iranian populace today. An Islamic Iranian government doesn't have much interest in people's Zoroastrian roots, rarely educating them on its meaning. Not fully understanding the power of its symbolism as a child, I realize it wasn't the Norouz itself that was meaningful to me, but the people who truly loved and cherished it, and as I saw less and less of the people who formed my childhood memories of Norouz, the excitement for the festivities faded in me. The Persian culture is so replete with traditions, and one ancient belief has it that whatever one does on the first day of Norouz, the day following the spring equinox, that activity will represent what one does for the remainder of the year. The moral may be: seize the day! Just as accomplishing that first task in the morning can propel you to accomplish the next and so on, if you use your time well on the first day of the year, that may just give you the momentum you need to make it through the rest of the year.
So I want to start my Weekly Musing by telling you how much I appreciate you all, and the time we have together. I spent two quality hours of my Norouz meeting with you last Saturday, discussing something we all care so deeply about, and I couldn't be happier if this was to be the type of discussion I have all year. I feel I have just begun this journey. But already, I find the lessons of Amitav Ghosh, Kate Raworth, Rob Davies and David Wallace-Wells finding their way into my day-to-day life, forming my understanding of the world around me and my relationship with art. Twice over the past five days, once during a virtual rehearsal and another time while guest lecturing to the chamber piano students at The University of Michigan, I found myself explaining my take on gradualism and catastrophism as could be translated to music, and the need to keep an open mind as we explore new narratives. I found myself talking about a sustainable ecosystem, Raworth’s doughnut, one that takes balance, justice, and our finite resources into consideration. Last month, I received an invitation to speak at Earth Day Boston 2021, after the organizers took interest in the connections I made between climate change and the classical music industry in an interview, ideas I continue to absorb from our ever-amazing mentor, Gabriela!
What I am learning from these experiences is quite heartwarming to me! There is an immense thirst; a thirst for learning more about climate change, a thirst for finding the most effective ways to take action, a thirst for leading a more sustainable lifestyle at micro and macro levels, and a thirst for translating it all to music and to express it in the form we know best. When climate change entered the conversation during my guest lecture at Michigan, it quickly derailed (in a good way) our enthusiastic discussion about piano, chamber music, and collaboration with composers. The students were interested in learning more about climate change, how it can be incorporated in their lives, their career, and in their art. They were interested in learning about what GLFCAM is doing, through this study and in its climate commitment, and how that model can be translated to what they do.
It is not the traditions that made Norouz meaningful to me, but the people cherishing those traditions. And while I am finding little practical hope in realizing the solutions proposed to climate change, I find renewed energy in the unification of people under this cause. So I thought for this season of renewal, it may be apt to share some people-led projects and links I have been collecting, mostly related to carbon capture, that have given me some hope!
Ocean-based Climate Solutions in Santa Fe is working on a cool project increasing the levels of phytoplankton in the oceans to remove carbon dioxide biologically. Project Vesta is working on weathering volcanic minerals and using wave energy to lock up CO2 in the form of limestone at the bottom of the ocean (one has to wonder though, what ultimately happens to the CO2 trapped at the bottom of the ocean in this way)? This Norwegian cement factory is trying to go carbon neutral by figuring out a way to capture its own emissions! Climeworks uses subscription-based public donations to directly capture carbon from the air. And of course, there is the expansive project Drawdown, about which we will be reading later!
Norouz has been a uniting tradition, and is celebrated by more than 300 million people worldwide. Among them are the Parsis, Iranis, Baluchs, Pashtuns, Baltis and some muslims of India and Pakistan. Amidst a decades-long ongoing conflict between them, India and Pakistan, two countries highly affected by climate change, are leading the way in fulfilling their climate goals: India is the only G20 nation on track to meet its Paris Climate Goals, and Pakistan is a decade ahead of its goals to meet UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13. If two countries involved with an external conflict and plagued by domestic terrorism can turn their focus to climate change, perhaps there is hope that the rest of the world can too!
Iman Habibi, D.M.A. (Michigan) is an Iranian-Canadian composer and pianist, and co-founder of the piano duo ensemble, Piano Pinnacle. He has received commissions from The Philadelphia Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra, twice attained the First Prize at the SOCAN Awards, as well as International POLYPHONOS award, and The Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award. Find out more on Iman's website.