The Conservation Concertos
are a set of works for solo instrument and orchestra being written over the next decade, each about a different nearly-extinct flora or fauna, or environmental concern: a subject close to its soloist’s heart.
The Conservation Concertos include works…
with Anthony McGill for clarinet + orchestra
about the Nautilus
with Tammy Miller for piano + orchestra
about Nearly-Extinct Flowers
with Masumi Rostad for viola + orchestra
about Pernambuco/Brazilwood
with Tommy Mesa for cello + orchestra
about Plastics
with Tommy Mesa for cello + orchestra
about Plastics
with Marie Bennett for flute + orchestra
about Manta Rays
ARBORESCENCE
is a viola concerto centered on pernambuco (Paubrasilia echinata), the endangered Brazilian tree whose wood has long shaped the sound of the modern bow. The piece follows the tree as it grows, connects, and is transformed, from root systems in the soil to the unseen networks that support it, and eventually into human hands. What emerges is a portrait of interdependence, where the same branching logic binds forest, instrument, human, and the systems that surround them.
About PERNAMBUCO
Pernambuco (Paubrasilia echinata) is a hardwood tree native to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest and has been the preferred material for high-quality string instrument bows for over two centuries due to its unique strength, density, and elasticity.
Beginning in the 16th century, the tree was heavily harvested for its red dye, and later for bow making, leading to significant population decline alongside widespread deforestation of the Atlantic Forest, of which only about 10–15% of its original extent remains today.
While pernambuco was once abundant along Brazil’s coastline; it is now classified as endangered, with natural populations fragmented and reduced. Conservation efforts are underway, including replanting initiatives and regulated harvesting, but the timeline of recovery is long: the material foundation of the string sound world now depends on a tree that does not return on human timescales.
I. Pastoral: Emergence
The concerto begins with the emergence of a seed, slowly unfolding ring by ring into a body of living wood. In sun and rain and soil, the tree grows upward as a dark pastoral takes shape in the strings alone, their instruments forming an entire forest on stage. As the tree reaches maturity, the solo viola draws it fully into being, and the players’ sounds and footfalls begin to activate the hall, allowing audiences to become aware of the wood all around them and turning the architecture itself into resonance, breaking this forest’s fourth wall.
II. Meditation: the undersong
This movement moves below the surface, descending into the dark hum of the root network and mycelial web. Low, sustained textures and distant signals create a continuous field that references the Schumann Resonance (the pitch of the Earth itself) as the solo viola leads us into a musical meditation that stretches time and reveals the vast, patient connections just beneath our feet.
II. Toccata: arborescence
The orchestra unfolds in rapid, branching figures that proliferate across the ensemble, visually and sonically tracing the logic of arborescence: growth, distribution, and consequence. The solo viola engages the material at its most physical, exposing and celebrating the mechanics of the bow. Gestures of cutting and fracture threaten the forest system, but the underlying network persists, revealing a structure that cannot be fully broken.
THE People
Marie Bennett is a Chicago-based flutist and climate artist whose work bridges virtuosic performance, environmental storytelling, and ocean science. Known for her expressive sound and imaginative programming, she performs across the United States and internationally as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player, with a growing body of work focused on ecological witness and endangered ecosystems.
An active commissioner of new music, Bennett has initiated and premiered works that engage directly with climate change, extinction, and environmental memory. She is the founder and artistic director of Extinction Lullabies, a performance and commissioning initiative honoring vanishing species, threatened habitats, and endangered languages through music, poetry, and soundscape.
Bennett’s projects frequently integrate archival and field recordings, spoken text, and multimedia, and she has commissioned and premiered works by composers including Stephanie Ann Boyd, Stephen Lias, Daniel Dorff, Lee Kesselman, and Joshua Rodriguez. A specialist in low flutes, she performs regularly on alto and contrabass flute.
An active collaborator with scientists, explorers, and conservation organizations, Bennett has participated in international climate and ocean expeditions, incorporating firsthand field experience into her artistic practice. Her work has intersected with figures such as oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, whose narration appears in Echoes from the Deep—a work for contrabass flute and whale song commissioned by Bennett and premiered at an ocean conservation gala. In addition to her performance career, Bennett recently retired after three decades of university teaching to focus full-time on large-scale climate-music projects, commissions, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
Michigan-born, Manhattan-based American composer Stephanie Ann Boyd writes music about women’s memoirs and the natural world for symphonic and chamber ensembles. Her work has been performed in nearly all 50 states and has been commissioned by musicians and organizations in 37 countries. Boyd’s five ballets include works choreographed by New York City Ballet principal dancers Lauren Lovette and Ashley Bouder and include a ballet commissioned for the grand opening of the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport. Stephanie’s music has been praised as “a racing, brassy score” (New York Times), “attractive lyricism” (Gramophone), “[with] ethereal dissonances” (Boston Globe), “[music that] didn’t let itself be eclipsed” (Texas Classical Review), and “arrestingly poetic” (BMOP).
Recent commissions and premieres include a work inspired by Betty Friedan entitled Everywoman, with Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, and 2022 Indianapolis Competition winner Sirena Huang as soloists and commissioned by the Peoria Symphony Orchestra with George Stelluto; Julia Louisa Esther: a Suffragette Symphony commissioned by the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra with Christopher Dragon, the premiere of which was the subject of a documentary on Wyoming PBS in 2022; Alleluia Olora commissioned by Astral Artists for cellist Tommy Mesa; Aurora, commissioned by the Kurganov-Finehouse Duo, and others.
THE MUSIC
length
19-25 minutes
instrumentation
Version A: 2.2.2.2./2.3.2.1./timp + 4/harp, celeste, solo flute, strings
Version B: strings (min 44331) + percussion + solo flute
three movements :
I. AQUARELLE
We begin on the glittering skin of the sea before descending into the vast depths of the blue cosmos beneath. M. birostris, the giant oceanic manta, flies in breathlike slow motion as their migrations trace the ancient marine highways that bind the oceans together.
II. NOCTURNE
Movement II is slow and hushed, gazing at the constellations beneath the moon — the star-like markings on the bellies of M. alfredi, the reef manta. They gather around the coral, queuing to be gently cleaned by tiny wrasses before slowly drifting into the mesmerizing, ceremonial cyclone of their feeding ritual.
III. DANCE-AUBADE
Movement III begins in a flurry: the cyclone now a spiraled mating-chase. We watch M. yarae, the newest manta species, embody the mythical, mysterious Brazilian mermaid she was named after, acrobatic turns and leaps bursting into a wild, colorful celebration of life.
The concerto ends in a vibrant dawn, signaling, invoking, and welcoming this next era of connection between human beings and mantas.