Christine MatovichMusic is service and awareness.
The Cloud Forest Symphony Project was born out of a personal experience. While traveling to Singapore, I went with my family to the Cloud Forest Biosphere. It was a magnificent installation, however I found myself being incredibly disturbed-it was too silent, except for the man made sounds of the reproduced Cloud Forest. At the end of the installation there was a flat wall of what a Cloud Forest was and why it was endangered. I felt no emotional connection to the Cloud Forests, globally, that are endangered. I returned to Delhi and discussed my experience with my strings students. I then asked them, “what if you could be the voices of endangered animals, trees, people or more in these Cloud Forests?”
The Cloud Forest Symphony Project was born, by students wanting to be the voices of change and hope to support the NGOs of endangered Cloud Forests globally. Students researched various endangered Cloud Forests globally, low lying sub-tropical rain forests that house incredibly vibrant flora and fauna, and previously was home to hundreds and thousands of tribes. Due to deforestation and conversion into grazing lands, these vitally important subtropical rain forests are in critical condition. Focus is on rain forests, not here, not where beauty and medicinal plants and history live. The creation of the symphony was based on research from the students. Finding endangered species and reflecting on the environment, they created motifs to be “voices” for those not heard in these Cloud Forests. The purpose of this project is to send the symphony to other international schools where music students, music educators and cloud forest conservationist can add their own movement, and have it be a global music awareness program.
For more information on the Cloud Forest Symphony Project, please visit our wordpress site at cloudforestsymphonyproject.wordpress.com, or our YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLadlnFaNGsr29sn8pRpnMA and Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/cloudforestsymphony. The video you are about to see is our debut of the first movement of the Cloud Forest Symphony Project. All melodic motives and rhythms were created from research of specific indigenous and endangered species from Cloud Forests Globally. The audio recording is an excerpt from their piece.