Bemidji Symphony Orchestra premieres piece commemorating the 'Sky-Tinted Water' of Voyageurs National Park
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Last fall, composer Marko Bajzer spent a month canoeing through Voyageurs National Park. He was doing an artist residency there. And as he canoed about, he was taken by how the sky and the water overwhelmed his senses and got his artistic juices flowing.
“And that's not something that you can plan for in the way that you can plan for a hike, or to plan to do this, you just kind of have to be out there, and you kind of have to just keep your eyes peeled and your kind of mind open to whatever beauty you may encounter,” he said.
That experience inspired a work titled “Sky-Tinted Water,” a loose translation of the Dakota Mni Sóta. The work celebrates the 50th anniversary of Voyageurs and provides a musical rendering of scenes from the Boundary Waters.
“In a literal sense, you see the clouds in the water. That was really my focus for this piece, and I think that's what makes the Boundary Waters and Voyageurs really special,” he said.
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Bajzer also draws from old paddling songs and Ojibwe melodies linked to the Red Lake Nation, whose permission he sought to sample the songs in his own work.
"I didn't want to do something that would have been inappropriate, or if there were specific songs that were, you know, reserved for specific ceremonies,” he said.
Bajzer says the piece is a multimedia experience. It includes visuals he recorded on his journey. And literal sounds he captured like buzzing mosquitos, loon calls and howling wolves.
The Northern Lights are also featured heavily in the work. And to help Bajzer realize his vision he turned to a theremin player.
“If the Northern Lights, if Aurora Borealis had a voice, what would it sound like? And in Marco's head, he thought it sounded like a theremin, which is so cool and magical,” said theremin player Caroline Scruggs, who will perform with the Bemidji Symphony Orchestra Saturday night.
A theremin is an electronic instrument commonly heard in old low-budget sci-fi films of the sixties and seventies. When people play the instrument, they look like they’re casting spells.
"Essentially, I'm waving my hands over these two antennas and conjuring sound kind of seemingly out of thin air, and it has this beautiful, ethereal human like voice, or string like voice,” said Scruggs.
Overall, Bajzer’s composition switches seamlessly from one mood to another, according to Beverly Everett, the music director and conductor at the Bemidji Symphony Orchestra.
“It's kind of similar to if you were taking a walk in nature: you're going to see one thing there, and then around the corner, see another,” she said. “It keeps the music really interesting and keeps everyone engaged, from myself to the musicians to, hopefully, the audience.”
Bajzer said this composition is part of a larger work he's doing pairing national parks with a symphony orchestra.
"It's kind of a, sort of my, my magnum opus here, and kind of combining two of my big passions in life, which are classical music and nature,” he said.
The piece will also be performed by the Rochester Symphony in February and by the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra in April. Additional performances could be added in the future.
