Song of a Giant Tortoise
for daegeum or shakuhachi
(-) Premiere performance: 2012, Afternoon of Shakuhachi and Koto Music, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts; Elizabeth Brown (shakuhachi)
(-) European premiere: 2018, Opening of Exhibition of paintings by Yala Juchmann, Katholische Akademie, Schwerte; Camilla Hoitenga (flute)
(-) African premiere: 2019, Conservatoire National de Musique et d'Art Chorégraphique de Rabat, Salle Bahnini, Rabat, Morocco; Elizabeth Reian Bennett (shakuhachi)
(-) Premiere of version for daegeum: 2021, ONLINE, Distanced Soundings, YouTube; Hong Yoo (daegeum)
Program notes
The wild has inspired innumerable pieces of music. One of them is the Song of a Giant Tortoise. It is a musical meditation on the subtly balanced ebbs and flows of the wild. Measured by the breath of the shakuhachi player, melodic phrases slowly unfold creating a sense of curious and innocent beauty as well as distance in space and time.
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to score yet another documentary by film maker Theo Lipfert entitled Invasion of the Giant Tortoises. The Song of a Giant Tortoise stems from that score. The film portraits a fascinating nature conservation project in Mauritius where giant tortoise – once plentiful but eventually extinct through over hunting during the 18th century – is now substituted by a similar species, the Aldabra giant tortoise. As an effect of the re-introduction of giant tortoise the whole ecological system has begun to gradually return to the balance which presumably existed before humans invaded the islands.
(Stefan Hakenberg, 2012)