Ice music

This is really interesting.  I do think that we want to see instrumentals at least done using this technology.  Ice frozen slowly to minus thirty is naturally clear and crisp and has a natural brittle sound.

It is worth all the effort if we can produce fantastic sound recordings out of it all.  Attending in person is actually a poor idea as the atmosphic temperature must rise and air vibration will be picked up by the ice hardware.

There is some wonderful music possible here to record..

A FRAGILE, FANTASTICAL RESPONSE TO A WARMING WORLD

 Tuesday, March 2, 2021

PHOTOGRAPH BY EMILE HOLBA, ICE MUSIC FESTIVAL

By George Stone, TRAVEL Executive Editor

A little ice music, anyone? Mozart might think it’s a cool idea—but would he be willing to brave subzero temperatures to hear musicians using frozen drums, horns, and harps to create a symphony of ice-cold song?

“In 2000 Norwegian composer and percussionist Terje Isungset performed the world’s first ice music concert inside a frozen waterfall in Lillehammer,” reports Lola Akinmade Åkerström. Since then, the annual Ice Music Festival Norway has attracted well-insulated audiophiles to frigid outdoor venues to hear the sometimes sonorous, sometimes eerie sounds of musicians playing instruments made of ice. (Above, Sidsei Walstad plays a 1,760-pound ice harp at the 2014 festival.)

When pandemic canceled this winter’s festival, the musicians agreed to perform in a livestream concert on March 14. “I find the crisp sounds of ice instruments so fascinating and special,” says Germany’s Anna-Maria Hefele, who’s been trying her hand at the ice harp. Other instruments are as fantastical as their glacial surroundings. The “iceofon”—a cross between a xylophone and a marimba—is one such resonant invention.

You don’t have to set your sights on Norway to hear this frosty phenomenon. “Isungset and his team perform some 70 concerts a year in places ranging from Australia and Japan to India and the U.S., often in indoor concert halls and using local storage freezers to preserve the instruments,” writes Åkerström. “American artist Tim Linhart has created hundreds of [ice instruments], as well as 19 ice orchestras and 11 igloo-style ice music concert halls in places from Luleå, Sweden, to the Italian Alps.” (Below, Isungset performing in 42-below Fahrenheit weather on Canada’s Baffin Island.)

The instruments impart an environmental message. “Ice music isn’t a human project, but one fully directed by nature,” says Isungset, who has partnered with the Bergen-based Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research to amplify messages about the effects of climate change on snow and ice.

Ice instruments are perfect metaphors of global warming. Their beauty is at risk of melting away before your eyes—and ears.