Bryton Kaufman - 2021

The Elegy for Planet Earth

The Elegy for Planet Earth is a musical and visual-story telling of climate change through music, nature, and science. It combines a performance of an arrangement of two songs that represent the story of our Earth currently: Elegy for the Artic by Ludovico Einaudi, and the theme from Planet Earth II by Hans Zimmer.

The way I structured this musical arrangement is meant to tell its own story, but quotes and excerpts from The Green New Deal allows the musical story to achieve its intended environmental meaning through fact, science, and research. Elegy for the Artic, written and even originally performed among melting glaciers, represents the harsh effects that a changing climate and global warming have had on our planet, and will only continue to.

The foreboding melody and harmonies are accompanied by words of warning from The Green New Deal, like what will happen to our seas, ecosystems, and even human life if we continue as we are. The music enters a cascading-like descending scale that represents our lack of conservation of the Earth. Yet, there is a glimmer of hope that begins to flicker, represented through a single repeated note, and the soft arrival of the Planet Earth theme with its deep, harmonious chords. This theme represents the hope we have to combat the effects climate change is having on our beautiful earth, and is accompanied by climate solutions that will combat climate change will have on our planet. This, accompanied by the hopeful climate solutions, leads to the climax of the story and music. After a dramatic build and pause, the Planet Eart theme surrounded by majestic descending arpeggios gives us the feeling of hope and relief that our Earth will survive if we make these intense efforts. The positive effects listed in the Green New Deal bring it home. Finally, the music literally descends back into Elegy for the Artic, which allows us to recognize how we need to have hope, but also the motivating fear and anxiety that comes with the Earth’s ticking clock. The final element was the visual effects.

The video was shot in the mountainside that overlooks Layton, Utah. The foreboding clouds in the distance, the trickling of the water, and the combination of music, word, and nature literally brings a story of our Earth to
life, right before our eyes.