Based in Boston, MA
Website: www.lindajchase.com
“After being in Japan during the tsunami/earthquake/nuclear disaster, composer Toru Takemitsu’s words became central to my vision: ‘A lifestyle out of balance with nature is frightening. As long as we live, we aspire to harmonize with nature. It is this harmony in which the arts originate and to which they will eventually return.'”
Biography
Linda J. Chase is a composer, ecophilosopher, and flutist/improviser. Her music weaves elements of chamber music, jazz and contemporary improvisation with spoken word and other arts. She has received composition awards from the Japan Foundation, Grand Canyon National Park, Kaji Aso Studio, the Morris Graves Institute, and Berklee College of Music. Chase is a Professor of music at Berklee College of Music, and New England Conservatory. Her courses include: Music, Spirit & Transformation, Music Collaborations in the Arts, and Ecomusicology. She is currently writing a book on listening to the Earth.
Her newest project is a 75-minute oratorio. On Care of Our Common Home is a new work based on Laudato Si’, an encyclical issued by Pope Francis. Laudato Si’ addresses not only people of faith, but everyone on earth. The message focuses on how humans have ravaged the Earth, and why we need to work together across all divisions, to mend and care for all inhabitants on the planet.
At this critical time, artists have great potential to communicate, nurture compassion, and inspire. This new oratorio interprets the text as a call to action through the medium of music. The 18-movement genre-crossing music for chorus, soloists and chamber ensemble (string quintet, flute, clarinet, percussion and piano) will be approximately 70 minutes long. Due to Covid-19 Chase plans to record ten of the movements this winter in advance of the live premiere, which she hopes will be performed in Summer or Fall 2021.
For more information: https://www.lindajchase.com/current
“A true ecological approach … must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment,
so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.”
(Pope Francis)
Audio Samples
Wisdom of Trees (2020), recorded live by Sebastian Bäverstam at International Woman’s Composer’s concert, Cambridge MA, October 2020.
“Hearing landscape for me begins with listening to other-than human beings. Listening to trees requires slowing down, expands my ways of knowing, and opens my creative process.”
The Joy of Our Hope (2020), recorded by Sarah Brindell, piano and voice, March 2020.
“This song, from my new oratorio, expresses that alongside our work to protect and restore the environment, I must remember gratitude and keep walking in the forest, contemplating stillness, and enjoying the view. ‘Let us sing as we go.'”