You may remember that back in April we did a display about Earth Music for Earth Day where we featured repertoire and books from our collection that focused on the environment. Well, since then, the Music Library has been working behind the scenes to create our own sustainability plan for the library. This is an ongoing process, but we are now ready to share some of the first steps.

We wanted to share them with you now in honor of Climate Action Week (November 2-8, 2024). The key to this week is to connect libraries and climate change conversations in British Columbia and Ontario.

As part of our contribution to Climate Action Week, we have been collecting more resources for you from our collection. In addition to this blogpost and display, you can find them in our new LibGuide about Music and Sustainability. If you have any ideas or suggestions about what we could include in this plan, please let us know!

Books in the collection

Culture and sustainability

Sustainable futures for music cultures: an ecological perspective edited by Huib Schippers and Catherine Grant analyzes nine case studies of diverse music cultures and details challenges and possibilities for music sustainability. Recommended chapter: “Approaching music cultures as ecosystems: a dynamic model for understanding and supporting sustainability.”
Cultural sustainabilities: music, media, language, advocacy edited by Timothy J. Cooley with a foreword by Jeff T. Titon highlights the relationship between cultural and environmental sustainability, using five examples to illustrate this. Recommended chapter: “Fiddle-icious: a community model for musical sustainability” by Thomas Faux.
Music endangerment: how language maintenance can help by Catherine Grant utilizes case studies to demonstrate how to preserve music practices and genres from around the world.
Music and the environment in dystopian narrative: sounding the disaster by Heidi Hart is a little bit different as it highlights music in media about the climate crisis. Recommended chapter: “Persephone in the late Anthropocene.”
The (fr)agile orchestra: empowerment strategies for orchestras edited by Gerald Mertens focuses on sustainability for all aspects of the orchestra, including environmentally. Recommended chapter: “The sustainable orchestra: how to develop an orchestra into an organization that implements environmental protections and many other terms of sustainability” by Gerald Mertens.
Sounding fragilities: an anthology edited by Irene Lehmann and Pia Palme speaks to the interconnectedness and intersectionality of performance and research – including ecology.

Region and sustainability

Activism

Music and the Environment

Ethnomusicology: a contemporary reader. Volume II edited by Jennifer C. Post features a number of important works from within the field of ecomusicology. Chapters we recommend include: “The ethnomusicologist at the rock face” by Kirsty Gillespie, and “Birdsong and a song about a bird” by Michaael B. Silvers.
Finding the singing spruce: musical instrument makers and Appalachia's mountain forests by Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth highlights the dichotomy between instrument making, which is simultaneously rooted in the forest, and also a part of a large-scale economic process of consumption. It offers an interesting perspective to consider about how we get our instruments and what the impact of that might be.
Eco-literate music pedagogy by Daniel J. Shevock offers strategies for centering music education within an ecomusicological perspective.
The book of music and nature: an anthology of sounds, words, and thoughts edited by David Rothenberg and Marta Ulvaeus includes writing and musical tracks related to the environment and our relationship to it. This is a good starting place for learning about the environment and music.
The evolving animal orchestra: in search of what makes us musical by Henkjan Honing studies whether animals are inherently musical, and what this means for our own musicality. Recommended chapter: “Perfect pitch.”

Electronic resources

"Popular Music: Folk and Folk Rock as Green Cultural Production" by John Parham discusses how specific music genres can bring more awareness of ecological ideas to a broader public.
"How can music help us to address the climate crisis?" by Helen M. Prior speaks to the ways that music can be used to influence environmental beliefs and behaviours because of its impact on mood and identity.
"Listening to Communities and Environments" by Leah Barclay details the Biosphere Soundscapes project that took place in UNESCO biosphere reserves to explore listening to communities and environments around the world.
"Artistic activism promotes three major forms of sustainability transformation" by Beatriz Rodriguez-Labajos details ‘artivism’ for the environment through education, ecocritical reflection, and art practice.
"Ecologies of creative music practice: Mattering music" by Matthew Lovett is a book which covers a range of topics related to contemporary ecologies and music. Recommended chapter: Critical Perspectives on Mattering Music.
"Live music is a major carbon sinner - but it could be a catalyst for change," an editorial in Nature, details some recent efforts by the music industry to make their tours and events more sustainable.
Performing environmentalisms: expressive culture and ecological change edited by John Holmes McDowell, Katherine Borland, Rebecca Dirksen, and Sue Tuohy offers both critiques and solutions to the current climate crisis from around the world. Recommended chapter: "Diverse ecomusicologies: making a difference with the environmental liberal arts" by Aaron S. Allen.
Supporting Vulnerable Performance Traditions: Keeping It Going in Contexts of Continuity and Change edited by Georgia Curran and Mahesh White-Radhakrishnan focuses on maintaining cultural traditions that are endangered. Recommended chapter: “Music Sustainability Research as Activism” in Chapter 1.
"Green in blue: The environmental impacts of jazz production and consumption" by Haftor Medbøe notes the historical environmental burden of jazz and how it can be greened in the future.
Listening after nature: field recording, ecology, critical practice by Mark Peter Wright offers a ‘post-natural’ approach to sound using both new and historical sound studies.
Toward a Sound Ecology : new and selected essays by Jeff Todd Titan has both practical tips for responsible research and also interesting insights into the way we connect to sound.
"'Legendary,' Environmental Justice, and Collaborative Cultural Production" by Kelly Hay and Rebekah Farrugia in Women Rapping Revolution connects urban geography and planning with eco-musicology and how it relates to the song “Legendary” by Nique Love Rhodes.
Sounds, ecologies, musics edited by Aaron S. Allen and Jeff Todd Titon brings together new challenges and opportunities for ecomusicology. Recommended chapter: “Eco- Trope or Eco- Tripe?: Music Ecology Today” by Jeff Todd Titan.
"The cost of music" by Matt Brennan and Kyle Devine tells us the environmental and economic cost to different sound-recording formats.

Scores

Bleached: saxophone (alto and tenor), guitar, percussion and piano by Libby Larsen
Envirpronolmelutntional: (Environmental pollution): for accordion, string orchestra & dancer by Wes R. D. Wraggett
The angry planet: an environmental cantata by Bob Chilcott
Earth music 1: ‘The Great Barrier Reef’: for orchestra by Edward Cowie
Flood and drought: for solo mandolin and string quartet by Hauschka
Ocean world: an ecological musical by Peter Rose
“Wallum” an Indigenous name for a tropical part of Australian land by Natalya Vagner
Nabunum’s water: for chamber orchestra, fixed-media and video, 2017 by Melody Eötvös

Recordings

Earth day heritage: a celebration in music and words by Marin Alsop
Women warriors: the voices of change: a celebration of global activists who are fighting for social justice: soundtrack from the original live-to-picture symphony concert by Amy Andersson
Music, language and environment: environmental sound works by David Dunn
The drop that contained the sea: works on the theme of water by Christopher Tin
Earth Bow by Sarah Louise

By Sabine O'Donnell, TALint Student, Music Library

Climate Action Week at the Music Library

Gallery