Saturn and Jupiter

I composed the Hörspiel Saturn and Jupiter in the winter of 2003, after spending a week—where temperatures never broke -20 degrees—at the Churchill Northern Studies Centre (http://www.churchillscience.ca) in Churchill, Manitoba. I undertook the project and trip after a period of almost two years of prolonged exposure to and study of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould’s Idea of North, his ground-breaking radio documentary from 1967. Saturn and Jupiter is conceived as a series of 32 vignettes, each exploring a northern sound environment or an interview with one of the researchers at the Centre. Each movement is named for a different stop along the 36-hour train route between Winnipeg and Churchill; beyond the names, there is no connection between the stops and the specific movements. However, like a train trip, a listener (or in this case, the person preparing a specific realization) is invited to pick which stops will constitute an aggregate work. The specific version constructed for the Logos Foundation contains 18 of the vignettes, paired with a video accompaniment comprised of photographs taken on that trip and from a second trip to Churchill in 2005. (Some pictures were also taken by Roger Woloshyn who is featured in several interviews, as well as participants in an Elderhostel learning vacation being taught during the period I visited.)