WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 1992

Reuters news wire

Lorrie Grant
Reuters

NEW YORK

Global Warming, a term usually associated with the environment, has been redefined and its new meaning literally played out on a New York concert stage.

The spirited orchestral work is entitled Global Warming, to reflect not only environmental concerns being aired at the Earth Summit in Brazil but also the recent liberalization in former communist regimes that fostered better world relations.

The opening section of the piece reflects the traditional idea of global warming - depletion of the ozone layer that shields living things from harmful ultraviolet radiation. An anguished violin solo is used to depict a vast desert and relentless heat punctuated only by the buzzing of cicadas.

"The concept of 'global warming' representing both the hot dry weather common to Arizona and the improving warm relations between cultures became the catalyst through which I could unite these varying ides," composer Michael Abels said.

"Global Warming was conceived in the particularly hot and dry summer of 1989, when many of the major international political realignments were just beginning," Abels, a 1992 recipient of the prestigious ASCAP Foundation Grants to Young Composers, told Reuters.

That was the year when East Germany opened the Berlin Wall; pro-democracy movements erupted in Poland, Hungary and the Soviet Union; strife broke out in China as student protesters in Tiananmen Square called for political reforms, and the United Nations cleared the obstacles blocking Namibia's independence from South Africa.

"Many folk cultures have music that is readily identifiable in their unique melody and rhythm… I chose melodies that sound similar to these cultures," Abels said.

He said the second section of Global Warming uses those sounds, which give way to a Middle Eastern melody that also includes a call and response familiar to African cultures before gradually changing to many counter-melodies and forming a cacophonus, yet harmonious, world village.

The piece comes full circle by revisiting the opening desert scene so the listener can "decide which image may more accurately reflect the future," said Abels, who is also the arranger for the annual "Celebrating the Black Artist," program for the Phoenix Symphony.

Abels does computer-aided drafting for an architectural firm and said he plans to translate his work experiences into music as well.

"Music is the architecture of sound in time whereas architecture is the music of form in space," he said.

Abels, 30, earned a bachelor of music degree from the University of Southern California and has written compositions for commercials and for legendary gospel songwriter James Cleveland. He said he had adapted his ear for culturally diverse music without leaving the country.

"Living in Los Angeles has meant that I've been able to learn about music from around the world simply by opening the window. My neighbors are immigrants from every corner of the world," he said.

"My ideas for writing a piece have nothing to do with music but how (the idea) can be explored musically," he said.

USC music instructor James Hopkins also links his former student's talent to his ideas.

"In studying composition you cannot teach ideas. Either you have original thoughts or not. You can teach how to deal with those ideas through technique," Hopkins said.

If the New York audience's rousing applause is a gauge, that technique worked with Global Warming.

 

 

(c) Copyright 1992 Reuters. All rights reserved.