(uplifting music) - Hello, I'm Daniel Meyer, Music Director of the Erie Philharmonic.

Welcome to "Fascinating Spaces with the Erie Philharmonic."

In this series, we present musical programs inspired by fascinating spaces right here in Erie and across northwest Pennsylvania.

In this episode, our fascinating space happens to be the very land we call home.

Our own environment.

Specifically, our special spot right here on the South shore of Lake Erie.

In this program, we will hear music by composers who were inspired by the nature around them.

There are scores of brilliant compositions influenced by the beauty, stillness and tempestuous nature of the sea, and we will hear music from perhaps the best known of those sea pieces, Debussy's "La Mer."

We will also talk to two Erie based scientists along the way who have dedicated their careers to studying our environment and making sure it stays clean and healthy for generations to come.

Let's get started with Claude Debussy.

He wrote "La Mer" as a three movement symphonic work influenced by the feelings you might have when faced with the sea at various points in the year.

He wanted to make sure though, that you weren't expecting a specific sound picture of the sea.

What I mean is, he wasn't trying to replicate the sounds of a sea, although there are certainly figures in this music that could conjure waves, wind and seas spray.

Debussy was more interested in evoking the emotions you would have when coping with the sea.

Whether it was a calm day with the water completely still or a tempestuous storm that could potentially wreck a sea vessel.

He gave descriptive titles to each of the three movements and the first you'll now hear was titled, "From Dawn to Midday On the Sea."

The music starts calmly with the simple intoning of harps atop churning notes in the cellos and bases.

As the sun rises, the wind begins to pick up and the waters get more active.

The music follows painting an ever-shifting impression of the sea.

(somber music) (eerie music) (eerie music continues) (light music) (light music continues) (light music continues) (uplifting music) (somber music) (somber music continues) (playful music) (intense music) (mellow music) (mellow music continues) (uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) (mellow music) (mellow music continues) (somber music) (somber music continues) (uplifting music) (uplifting music continues) (uplifting music continues) The Great Lakes are a precious resource to millions of people who live in proximity to these fresh water sources.

Jim Grazio from Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection is an expert on Lake Erie's watershed and has thoughts on why we should take good care of this most precious resource.

- I'm Jim Grazio.

I'm the Great Lakes biologist for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

I get to monitor the water quality on Lake Erie.

On a good day, I'm out on a boat either collecting water samples or collecting fishes to see, you know, about their health.

It's such a unique and valuable resource.

Everyone knows it's a, you know, one of the fishing capitals of the world.

It's a great place to spend a sunny day on the beaches of Presque Isle, but it's just such a unique and biologically fascinating, biologically productive, and yet kind of a fragile ecosystem, just based on the nature of Lake Erie.

I think some of the most interesting things are the fact that, even though it's the 11th largest lake in the world, it's still the shallows to the Great Lakes, and it's this interplay between being the most biologically productive but also being the most susceptible to pollution.

You know, historically it's the lake that had the most stresses, the most problems related to pollution and it's the result of the shallowness of the water as well as the density of the human population around it.

So you kind of have a lot of material going into a relatively small volume of water compared to the other Great Lakes.

And that's the challenge with Lake Erie.

It also has incredible biological diversity.

I think about Presque Isle Bay here in the background.

We have species of fish like the Spotted Gar, this kind of primitive toothy fish.

It doesn't occur anywhere else in Pennsylvania other than here in Presque Isle Bay.

So how cool is that?

How valuable is that?

How important is it to protect that biological heritage?

So, the interesting thing about the Lake Erie fishery, even though Lake Erie is the smallest of the Great Lakes in terms of volume, it grows the largest number of fishes.

It's incredibly biologically productive and that owes to the two things, the small volume of water in Lake Erie, relative, it's the shallowest of the Great Lakes.

So it warms the quickest and it also has the most nutrient input.

It's easy to tip the balance.

We want to have enough nutrients and food in the system to grow a lot of fish, you know to be able to have this fantastic world class fishery but it's so easy to add too many nutrients and then have problems with harmful algal blooms, and maybe not have the reproduction of certain species that are desirable.

So it's kind of a delicate balance between the the productivity of Lake Erie and the sensitivity of Lake Erie.

It's not too hard to imagine what will happen if we don't maintain our watershed, if we're not good stewards of the environment because we've seen it happen already, right?

We can think about back in the early seventies when Lake Erie was considered a dead lake.

Biologically, that's not true, it was too alive.

It was too, what we call biologically productive.

So we don't want to go back there.

You know, the governments of the United States and Canada have done so much to reduce untreated sewage discharges to remove phosphorous from detergents, you know, to work to preserve water quality in tributaries to the great lakes that ultimately benefit the lakes themselves.

My background is in ecology and that's the scientific attempt to understand everything that's happening in the environment.

So everything affects everything else.

I think about an orchestra and I used to play, I used to be in the band in high school and I thought about the interplay between the low brass, and the woodwinds and the percussion section and all the instruments are cool.

They make their own sounds but if they're not in harmony, if they're not synchronized then the concert just doesn't work.

And I think that's really the case with the ecosystem as well.

Everything has to be in balance.

The physical habitat has to be suitable to support the life that occurs in it.

The water quality has to be suitable, the chemical quality to support the life within it and the life itself can't adversely impact the rest of the ecosystem.

So I think you have this ecological symphony when everything is in balance, it's beautiful.

It sounds good to the mind's eye but when it's out of balance, like it has been in the past and like we hope it won't be in the future, the music doesn't sound as good.

(uplifting music) - Now, we are up to a fascinating soundscape by contemporary composer Maria Huld Sigfusdottir.

She is a contemporary composer based in Iceland and her piece, "Oceans," was inspired in part by how fragile our oceans have become and what ramifications our treatment of those waters will have on the future of our planet.

The music is at turns mysterious, still and sometimes overwhelming, but in its overall effect you can't help but admire how she captures the immensity of the sea and its power in this piece.

(somber music) (somber music continues) (somber music continues) (curious music) (curious music continues) (curious music continues) (intense music) (mellow music) (uplifting music) (mellow music) (somber music) (intense music) (somber music) (eerie music) (eerie music continues) (somber music) (somber music continues) (somber music continues) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (mellow music) (mellow music continues) (mellow music continues) (mellow music continues) Before we play another piece inspired by nature, I thought we might take some time to hear from Mercyhurst University Professor Christopher Dolanc, whose studies have focused on our surroundings in several unique ways.

Here's Professor Dolanc on the forests that dominate our habitat here in Erie.

- I'm Chris Dolanc, I'm a professor of biology and environmental science at Mercyhurst and I'm also a cellist in the Philharmonic.

I teach botany, a general botany course.

I teach field botany.

Most of my classes have to do with being outside.

I love being near the lake.

It also creates these beautiful forests around us.

The lake warms us up in the fall and we have these gorgeous falls that last longer than places further south.

We have a milder microclimate, then say 10 miles south.

Western Pennsylvania in general is like perfect for, it's like that sweet spot for large, diverse forests.

And, and then Erie especially is, because of that mi mild microclimate that I was talking about, we have a slightly longer growing season in the summer.

We just are able to grow these beautiful trees here.

The forest here are dominated, so it's eastern deciduous forests.

They're dominated by Hemlock, Sugar Maple and several other species.

There's a whole slew of what are called ecosystem services that forests provide, that the less forest you have the less likely you are to get those things.

They're things like clean air, clean water, trees clean the air by, not necessarily by providing oxygen, but by taking in pollutants.

They actually take in gases but they'll also pull up pollutants from the water that don't get into our drinking water.

They take in and sequester carbon, carbon dioxide, which is a really big deal in the age of climate change.

So the more of those you have, the more carbon dioxide they're taking in.

They actually reduce, they actually moderate the climate.

And anybody who's out on a hot summer day can feel this.

If you're walking in full sun and then you duck into a forest or just even under the shade of a tree, there's a massive difference in temperature and humidity in forests.

I have met so many people in my career that are scientists by day, musicians by night or sometimes the other way around.

There's a natural connection there and I don't know if it's an actual connection or if it's like a yin and yang thing.

You know, you're using one side during the day and the other side of your brain at night or something like that.

You know, being in a natural area or listening to music sort of bring you the same kind of feelings, at least for me, they do.

And a lot of nature evokes, a lot of music evokes themes of nature.

When we played La Mer I was actually picturing like large waves, and it adds to the emotion of it for me.

If I were, whether or not I'm sitting in the audience or playing it, it gives me a little bit of extra emotion behind what I'm doing.

- German composer Felix Mendelssohn wrote music to accompany Shakespeare's play, "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

The play is set in a forest, and in this next piece, Mendelssohn was able to create the sensation of trees rustling on a moon lit night.

In this intermezzo the action is brisk and wind blown but towards the end, a pair of bassoons strut onto the scene in comedic fashion, blissfully unaware of anything that might have happened before they arrived.

(curious music) (curious music continues) (curious music continues) (playful music) (playful music continues) (playful music continues) (playful music continues) (light music) (light music continues) (uplifting music) We are proud of the team we have built here at the Erie Philharmonic.

Within the ranks of our musicians we have individuals who distinguish themselves as soloists, chamber musicians, teachers and working professionals who value their membership at the Erie Philharmonic.

let's feature a string quartet of those fine musicians now.

Featuring Concert Master Ken Johnston, second violin, Joshua Huang, violist Ben Schantz and cellist Eri Snowden-Rodríguez.

Performing from Erie's Tom Ridge Environmental Center.

Our musicians will play music from Haydn's Lark Quartet.

Given this nature inspired nickname because of the soaring, circling melody in the first movement.

(playful music) (playful music continues) (dramatic music) (playful music) (dramatic music) (playful music) (playful music continues) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (playful music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (playful music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (light playful music) (playful music) (playful music continues) (playful music continues) (playful music continues) (curious music) (curious music continues) (somber music) (playful music) (playful music continues) (curious music) (playful music) (lively music) (lively music continues) (lively music continues) (upbeat dramatic music) (lively music) (lively music continues) (ethereal music) (uplifting music) (dramatic music) (vocalists singing in foreign language) (uplifting music) ♪ If you find that your ♪ ♪ Murder by numbers, one, two, three ♪ (triumphant music) (uplifting music) (whimsical music) (whimsical music continues) Let's finish our program with a return to Debussy's La Mer.

Debussy's fascination with the sea began from holidays he took to the shore as a little boy.

As an adult, his interest was further peaked when he came across a reproduction of a now famous Japanese painting called, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa."

As Japan and the Far East started to open up to Europe particularly during the Universal Exposition of 1889 in Paris, Debussy was fascinated by the instruments, scales and ensembles that were new to him.

Speaking of Hokusai's great wave painting Debussy kept a reproduction close to his desk and ultimately insisted that the cover of the score to "La Mer," feature a reproduction of Hokusai famous painting.

Now we'll perform the third and final movement from Debussy's "La Mer," titled, "Dialogue of the Wind and Sea."

(eerie music) (eerie music continues) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (suspenseful music) (suspenseful music continues) (mellow music) (dramatic music) (suspenseful music) (suspenseful music continues) (somber music) (somber music continues) (uplifting music) (eerie music) (somber music) (somber music continues) (bright music) (intense music) (somber music) (energetic music) (mellow music) (light music) (mellow music) (energetic music) (dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) If you are interested in figures like Claude Debussy, Maria Huld Sigfusdottir, Felix Mendelssohn, Franz Joseph Haydn or Erie's own Christopher Dolanc from Mercyhurst University and Jim Grazio from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.

Please follow the links posted on our website, "eriephil.org."

We'd also like to thank the Tom Ridge Environmental Center as well as our partners at the Warner Theater, WQLN and Mega Media Factory.

We hope you've enjoyed exploring this fascinating space through music.

Thank you for watching.

We can't wait to see you again at another performance of the Erie Philharmonic.

(eerie music) (uplifting music) (uplifting music counties) (dramatic music) (energetic music) (dramatic music)