How can a musical community come together to emotionally process life in a changing and forever-changed environment? The three compositions premiered in this performance explore responses to this question by composers Scott Rubin, Alissa Voth and Ben Zucker, and videographer Zack Sievers. Performers seek to create a shared musical space for reckoning with themes of nature, loss, nostalgia, erosion and erasure on multiple planes. Interspersed between these pieces are short film clips exploring themes of ritual, healing, and environmental change in which both the musicians from the trio and some of their friends engage with the rapidly changing ecosystems of the Warren Dunes.

Composing the Climate is a continuation of pianist Cacie Miller’s doctoral project. This set of pieces was commissioned and collaboratively prepared by Miller and Missing Piece (Dan Galat and Kelly Quesada). Each work takes a distinct approach to facing the changing climate. Rubin’s trio narrates the history of human “progress” and its destructive march in a work that interleaves notated and improvised movements. Voth’s work sensitively explores “Solastalgia,” mourning of an anticipated loss. Zucker’s piece uses the instrumentation of the piano trio to model the concept of subscendence, as the trio members shift between listening to themselves and each other as they move through Zucker’s indeterminacy-sprinkled score.