Ocean Calling III: The Giant Blue

The film of the ocean featured at the top of this page was created by Chana Levine for the Ocean Calling series. It may be shown without sound prior to a performance of Ocean Calling III. ©Chana Levine 2013.

Ocean Calling is a series of compositions for two pianos, dedicated to the ocean. As I learn of large-scale contaminations, over-fishing, acidification and rising temperatures from global warming, death of coral reefs, and more, I fear we take for granted the ocean’s gifts, unaware that our survival is linked to the ocean’s health. Covering 72% of the planet surface and providing half the oxygen we breathe, while regulating our climate with currents traversing thousands of miles, the ocean has been called our life-support system. I hope the Ocean Calling series will help us to renew our connection with this vital life source and its vast, mysterious realms, and that we will hear the call from the sea that we are part of one indivisible whole.

In Ocean Calling III: The Giant Blue I hope to convey the expanse of the sea, its call and echo, ancient reverberations from the medium where life began. The title also refers to the Giant Blue Whale, the earth’s largest creature. The music’s pulsating chords with sustained bowed tones mimic whale sounds and their resonance through miles of ocean. If we listen deeply, can we comprehend the whale’s call and the call of other singing sea creatures? What would they tell us, as their numbers decrease and their habitats transform? How do we respond?

See a BBC video of the Giant Blue Whale here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fzT6ifrhL8

Other works in this series are: Ocean Calling I: Waves and Currents and Ocean Calling II: From the Depths

Composed for a consortium of the following two-piano teams:

• Marina Lomazov and Joseph Rackers (Lomazov/Rackers Duo, University of South Carolina)
• Laura Melton and Robert Saterlee (Bowling Green State University)
• Alys Terrien-Queen and Cristina Capparelli Gerling (Wendell, Massachusetts and Porto Alegre, Brazil)
• Elizabeth Loparits and Norman Bemelmans (University of North Carolina Wilmington)

Excerpt begins at measure 9.