It’s astounding sometimes, the journey that a mere spark of an idea can launch. My Violin Concerto No. 2, “on the brink,” which premiered on January 25 of this year, began some six years ago simply as violinist Elissa Cassini’s and my intention to work together. We were introduced by violinist/composer Ittai Shapira, for whom I had composed my first violin concerto. I was drawn to Elissa’s deeply felt way with works both old and new. We found that we shared a concern for the environment and the onrushing climate crisis, and wondered whether we could contribute somehow to climate action through music. What better vehicle than a concerto, I thought, spotlighting an individual caught up in powerful forces?
So there was the spark, and it was fanned into a flame when Elizabeth and Justus Schlichting, prolific supporters of American composers, commissioned the piece. Then the creative journey really began when I discovered the ClimateMusic Project, a non-profit that connects audience members to climate science and action through the emotional power of music. I made a cold call, piqued their interest, and soon Elissa and I found ourselves in Zoom calls with leading climate researchers eager to share insights with us and with the public. Dr. Tapio Schneider, Dr. Garrett Boudinot, and Dr. William Collins elucidated recent findings and projections, as well as technological advances that could enable an effective response to climate change. Our conversations throughout the compositional process helped me select feedback loops in the carbon cycle that would underpin my work: vicious circles that are speeding planetary warming, and also virtuous circles that are speeding decarbonization.
The opening page of the score for Theodore Wiprud’s Second Violin Concerto; unusually for a violin concerto, the work begins with an extended trio for percussion. The work is dedicated to violin soloist Elissa Cassini, who performed its world premiere. Image courtesy of the composer.
“The concerto took shape over about nine months of composing and consulting with scientists and soloist, a very heady process,” says Wiprud. “This concerto would become ClimateMusic Project’s first orchestral project, and I was happy to be their guide to this musical world.”
ClimateMusic also led me to writers like Ashlee Cunsolo Willox and Renee Lertzman, who helped me understand climate mourning, the feeling that is increasingly prevalent among younger generations that their future is already hopeless; and the concept of “attunement,” the ability to respond to our own emotions and those of others. I began to foresee a musical work embodying an individual’s psychological response to the catastrophic images that we see today, and the climb out of despair to reclaim hope. At its nadir, the music would fall literally out of tune, and then grope its way back to clarity and agency.
Only when the big ideas were in place did I begin composing, sketching out accelerating cycles both vicious and virtuous. Musical images for vicious circles came fairly easily: burning of fossil fuels, heat-trapping greenhouse gasses, melting ice caps, flooding tides, colossal storms. Virtuous circles were more challenging, since even in the rosiest scenario, a great deal of suffering is already locked in for coming decades. Rather than resolving the threat, my virtuous circles focus on collective action: cascades of growing popular movements, emerging economies of scale, and the interlocking innovations that lead to technological breakthroughs.
The creative journey really began when I discovered the ClimateMusic Project, a non-profit that connects audience members to climate science and action through the emotional power of music.
The concerto took shape over about nine months of composing and consulting with scientists and soloist, a very heady process. This concerto would become ClimateMusic Project’s first orchestral project, and I was happy to be their guide to this musical world.
But until an orchestra actually committed to a performance, we were all vision and no sound. I cast my net far and wide, but as often happens, it was a tried-and-true relationship that led to a premiere. Conductor Delta David Gier and the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) are among my champions, having played three of my earlier works. David, the SDSO’s music director, reacted warmly to my score and scheduled a world premiere for January 2025. Finally, we were in business, with a year to put more puzzle pieces in place.
Next came Camilla Tassi, a brilliant young projection designer. The ClimateMusic Project (CMP) commissioned her to create an immersive, multilayered, multimedia experience that would play out on a scrim across the entire back of the stage throughout the performance, supporting the concerto’s climate narrative. CMP’s team of scientists were again enormously helpful in developing visual concepts and sourcing images.
In sync with the South Dakota Symphony’s premiere of Wiprud’s violin concerto, sustainability students from the University of South Dakota at Vermillion displayed their research at the concert venue. Local environmental groups were invited to discuss their climate action efforts, providing context for the concerto’s themes. Photo by Aaron C. Packard.
And there’s still more to the project. In order to create public engagement around climate action, the South Dakota Symphony reached out to the University of South Dakota at Vermillion (USD). Building on past collaborative projects, the orchestra and the university devised a day on campus for violin soloist, projection designer, climate scientists (by Zoom), and composer (me) in which we exchanged ideas with students and faculty in music and in the university’s sustainability program. Many who attended those sessions then attended the performance. And sustainability students displayed poster presentations of their research into the lobby of the concert venue, Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls. Alongside tables for SoDak 350 (a grassroots South Dakota organization supporting climate action) and other local environmental groups, these presentations contextualized the premiere in a veritable climate fair.
Composer, violinist, scientists, climate activists and psychologists, projection designer, orchestra with its conductor and staff, university schools of music and sciences, stage crew—and at last, on January 25, an audience! To top it all off, South Dakota Public Broadcasting brought in five cameras to produce a video livestream for global reach (see link below).
The performance was so much more than what I had heard in my composer’s imagination. Elissa Cassini by now owned the concerto and embodied it with powerful, expressive virtuosity. Camilla Tassi’s deeply psychological imagery lifted it to a mythic level. The orchestra played with total commitment. The audience seemed rapt for the 38 continuous minutes of this drama. After the work faded out, there was a deliciously long silence as the work’s impact sank in—and then a prolonged, cheering, standing ovation.
The message of climate hope that motivated all of us partners played out before over 1,000 listeners—not climate activists, but the general public. We know that a majority of people in the U.S. and globally are concerned about our rapidly changing climate, but many don’t understand the urgency of taking action, or that they have the agency to make a difference. I hope our work has inspired some to support local, state, or larger initiatives.
A composition need not carry a social message to be transformative. But this project, the most ambitious of my career to date, confirmed for me the power of artistic vision to carry projects forward and attract partners. The payoff for six years of dreaming, composing, and working toward the premiere has already been spectacular. And the journey seems far from over.
South Dakota Public Broadcasting produced a program that captures the January 25 world premiere of Theodore Wiprud’s Violin Concerto No. 2, “on the brink,” by the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra. The video also includes two pieces by Music Composition Academy students and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4.
