VII. Coral

When conditions such as the temperature change, corals expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, responsible for their color. A spike of 1–2°C in ocean temperatures sustained over several weeks can lead to bleaching, turning corals white. If corals are bleached for prolonged periods, they eventually die. Coral bleaching events often lead to the death of large amounts of corals. The bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef in 2016-17 killed around 50% of its corals. Coral reefs are estimated to directly support over 500 million people worldwide, who rely on the ecosystem they support for daily subsistence, mostly in poor countries. A 2015 study projected that the climate-related loss of reef ecosystem services will cost US $500 billion per year or more by 2100.

In this movement, flowing harp, woodwinds, and strings help us to feel how many small, delicate coral come together to make up gigantic, vibrantly alive coral reefs.

VIII. the blue Whales

The blue whale is the largest animal on the planet, weighing as much as 200 tons (approximately 33 elephants). The blue whale has a heart the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. They are the loudest animals on Earth, with their calls reaching 188 decibels. (a jet reaches 140 ).. Their low frequency whistle can be heard for hundreds of miles. During the 20th century, the blue whale was an important whaling target and the ~10,000-25,000 that exist today are just 3-11% of their population as of 1911.

Played at the tempo of the blue whale’s heartbeat when they are at the surface of the ocean, this movement begins with the pitch sung by a whale called “Loneliest Whale in the World”/the 52-Hertz whale/52-Blue: this low G# is called out again and again until she is finally answered by the rest of the orchestra playing the pitch of the rest of the Blue Whale population (a low Eb), finally bringing her and her family together in a joyful mountain of sound that features a duet between the clarinet and tuba.

IX. The Ivory-Billed Wood PeckerS

Destruction of the woodpecker's mature or old-growth forest habitat caused populations to decline, and by the 1880s the species was rare. Forest destruction accelerated during the World War I and II war efforts, destroying much of its habitat. The last universally accepted sighting of an American ivory-billed woodpecker occurred in 1944.

Separately-muted trumpets sing the song of one of the last Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers to ever be recorded on tape, while cellos and basses tap out their wood-pecking rhythms on the bodies of their instruments.

X. the Passenger Pigeons

In May 1850, a 20-year-old Potawatomi tribal leader named Simon Pokagon was camping at the headwaters of Michigan’s Manistee River during trapping season when a far-off gurgling sound startled him. It seemed as if “an army of horses laden with sleigh bells was advancing through the deep forests towards me,” he later wrote. “As I listened more intently, I concluded that instead of the tramping of horses it was distant thunder; and yet the morning was clear, calm, and beautiful.” The mysterious sound came “nearer and nearer,” until Pokagon deduced its source: “While I gazed in wonder and astonishment, I beheld moving toward me in an unbroken front millions of pigeons, the first I had seen that season.” Wild flocks of up to a billion passenger pigeons would darken the sky above you as they flew by. Martha, the last passenger pigeon, died in 1914 at the age of 29.

You will feel this movement before you hear it: a deep rumble in the low voices of the orchestra suddenly crescendo and explode into a grand, flying murmuration of sound and flurry.