Terraforming

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score available from
Wise Music

program note
Terraforming is the theoretical process of modifying a planet or moon’s atmosphere, temperature, topography or ecology to create an environment similar enough to Earth to be habitable by humans:

“Recent scientific results suggest that there is not enough CO2 remaining on Mars…; in addition, most of it is not accessible and cannot be readily mobilized. As a result, terraforming Mars is not possible using present-day technology.” (Jakosky, Edwards, 2018).

Scientific understanding and capability aside, the general notion of making an environment habitable is central to human nature; and as we are increasingly compelled to consider climate change more deeply, terraforming might also influence our thinking as a metaphor for life on Earth.

This work was commissioned by and written for Ricardo Carvalhoso, who gave the premiere performance on 30 June 2022 at the Blekinge International Brass Academy Amiralitetskyrkan, Karlskrona, Sweden. The work was written while in residence at the Visby International Centre for Composers, Gotland, Sweden in early 2020.

review
“When the concert program stepped out of the deep baroque and into the era of the tuba, with Australian Stuart Greenbaum, more tuba technique came. Wildly bright tuba tones that could be felt like a shiver in the forehead, and very deep tones that made the church floor tremble. Techniques and heights that one might not have expected the tuba to be capable of.”
Bjorn Dahl Lumholt, Byportalen, dit-soroe.dk, July 2026