One of the fun things about living at a field station has to be the events that you never expected to happen: like a festival where composers are invited to the Tetons to write music inspired by the natural landscapes.
Last Thursday, instead of our usual research seminar, the UW-NPS Research Station hosted the Wyoming Festival: New Music in the Mountains. Instead of staring at powerpoint slides and listening to a researcher talk about their (really cool) projects, we got to listen to a series of brand new musical compositions, performed live, and even talk to the composers afterward.
There were 6 different pieces, each with different inspirations.
Shimmering Sentinels by Anne M. Guzzo, inspired by quaking aspens.
The Lodgepole Pine by Henrique Rabelo, inspired by, obviously, the lodgepole pine.
Angry Water, by Steven Laven, inspired by an early season rafting trip on the Snake River, when the water was more turbulent than it is right now.
The Beaver and the Willow, by Shawna M. Wolf, which I will come back to.
Bask, by Del'Shawn Taylor, a beautiful piece about the sensation of basking in nature.
And Pas de Huit, a play on "pas de deux," inspired by the local species of spiders and writen by Monica Mendoza.
The experience of sitting in the seminar room, listening to music inspired by the landscape just outside our windows, was surreal. Angry Water stood out to me as a beautiful, energetic piece. It ended on a note of silence, with the string players lifting their bows, implying the airtime caught by the raft. Bask was incredibly beautiful, bringing to mind the image of the sun rising and setting behind the mountains.
But the piece that obviously needs special attention from me, is The Beaver and the Willow.
When we arrived from the field, sweaty and disgusting, I was informed that not only was there a beaver-themed piece on the program, but that the shirts for the festival featured a beaver, and the composer of the beaver-themed piece had crocheted a beaver as a gift for the bassoonist performing her music.
Needless to say, I ran to go get one of those shirts!!
I also met the composer, Shawna, and saw the adorable beaver she had crocheted.
The music itself was delightful. As the only solo on the program, it was unique in that the bassoonist had the "stage" to himself, and there was nothing to do but focus on him.
Shawna was inspired by a study done on the Northern Range of Yellowstone, which looked at the regeneration of willow after beavers cut it down. So the music was a conversation between the higher-pitched willow, and the lower-pitched beaver. It started off with a beautiful little melody representing the willow and then transitioned to a rhythm that immediately brought to mind the awkward little walk of a large beaver on land.
The song bounced back and forth between the two species, with the willow "protesting" its consumption and the beaver continuing about its business. As a former band kid, watching the bassoonist switch back and forth between the two different octaves of the two different species was impressive, and the effort was clear.
All in all, the Wyoming Festival was a delightful departure from our usual routine, and a really interesting combination of science, art, and outreach. The composer of Pas de Huit had even gotten to spend time with a visiting spider researcher, and they tried to record the sounds of spiders walking across a drum to incorporate into future music!
The most fun moment of the evening though was when Gage and I were chatting with Shawna after the performance and she casually mentions that she had never seen a beaver.
I looked at my watch. 8 o'clock exactly.
So I looked back at her and said "do you want to? We have to go right now."
She was more than down, and we all sprinted down the hill from the building the music was played in to our cars. Along the way, we acquired two more beaver afficionados, hopped into two cars, and drove down to the Jackson Lake Dam.
For little while, it seemed we might not be so lucky. Even though the beaver pond by the dam is where I have most consistently seen beavers, and they are usually out and about at 8pm, there was no sign of them at first.
We were patient though...and our patience was rewarded.
Although they were, for the most part, quite far away, we saw what might have been up to 4 beaver, going about their evening business.
By far the best beaver moment was when I took a picture of one distant beaver, and upon zooming in, discovered it was dragging not a branch of willow, but a bundle of lupine!
But the best part overall was watching the three people we had brought watch eagerly, passing around my binoculars, just delighted to see the beavs.
You never know what's going to happen at a field station - and sometimes that's the fun of it.
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