Music, film draw attention to beleaguered oceans
Annie Crawley thought she wanted to be a travel journalist so she booked a trip to Australia.
“Two weeks into my trip I learned to dive — and didn’t come home for four years,” she says.
Her passion for oceans led the scuba diver to become an author, advocate — and collaborator with Central Florida composer Stella Sung on the orchestral piece “Oceana.” The work, which incorporates actual marine-animal sounds, highlights the pollution challenges faced by the world’s water. It will be performed in the Dr. Phillips Center’s Steinmetz Hall as part of this year’s UCF Celebrates the Arts festival.
“When Stella asked me, I said, ‘Yes, yes, yes, 100 times over,’ ” says Crawley, who is based in Washington state. Crawley created a film that accompanies the 13-minute work and complements the music while visually introducing the audience to an underworld world.
The event in Steinmetz Hall will not only look at the future of the oceans but at the future of music itself; a test group of audience members will wear virtual-reality gear to experience “Oceana” in a more immersive way.
No matter what draws the audience in — the music, the images or even holograms — Crawley hopes the message comes through loud and clear: “The time is now, there is no later. All of these problems … only we can be the solution.”
Aquatic noise pollution was the impetus for “Oceana.” Sung and maestro Christopher Wilkins, former music director of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra, attended a lecture by scientist Scott Kraus at the New England Aquarium in Boston.
As they heard about the disruptive and destructive noise from
cruise ships, military operations, boats and the underwater seismic air guns used in oil and gas exploration, “Chris and I looked at each other and said, ‘Wow,’ ” Sung recalls.
“Oceana” was born of that experience, and premiered in Boston in 2018. A work in three movements, the opening depicts the beauty and grandeur of the ocean, Sung says. The dissonant middle section shows how the world’s oceans are distressed, while the final movement sounds a note of hope for the future.
Running throughout the music: “There is purposeful use of whale song,” Sung says. “It’s an undercurrent, if you will.”
When Crawley came on board, she was immediately taken with the music.
“She’s a visionary,” Crawley says of Sung. “She saw this opportunity
to really transport the audience to the ocean. I immediately saw her vision.”
Crawley’s visuals expand on the noise-pollution issue to look at plastic and carbon pollution, as well, in part because noise pollution is harder to visually document. The blasts from seismic air guns, for example, can blow an underwater camera apart.
“We can see the destruction we’re causing,” Crawley says. “The next change has to happen with everyone, we all have to be part of the movement.”
She has been tweaking her film with updated images since the 2018 premiere so the Orlando audience will be the first to see this version. She also has continued her travel, documenting both destruction and beauty.
Crawley missed the Boston premiere of “Oceana” — “I was swimming with humpback whales in Tonga,” she says matter-of-factly — but will be in attendance for the Orlando
concert. She’ll participate in a panel discussion with Kraus and UCF biologists Linda Walters and Kate Mansfield, who specialize in oyster reefs and sea turtles, respectively.
The experiment with virtual reality and Microsoft’s HoloLens technology is being conducted by Sung in partnership with John Murray, a UCF assistant professor of games and interactive media.
“We’re looking at if it’s possible to engage audiences in a different way and enhance the music,” Sung says. “That’s a benefit of working at a university, we can try these things.”
While Sung is happier on land, Crawley can’t wait to get back in
the water. She talks animatedly of her sense of discovery as she sees cuddlefish eggs hatching, turtles feeding and a mama and baby humpback whale contentedly swimming together.
“I’m more comfortable underwater than I am on land,” she says. “It’s where I feel complete.”
That feeling drives her advocacy for reducing pollution.
“It’s up to us,” she says. “We have the solutions, we have to embrace them. I believe the arts are a very powerful way to inspire action.”
‘Oceana’
What: Work by Stella Sung and Annie Crawley featured on the UCF Symphony Orchestra program “An Exploration of Land and Sea”
Where: Steinmetz Hall at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, 445 S. Magnolia Ave. in Orlando
When: 7:30 p.m. April 9 Tickets: $15-$60
Info: arts.cah.ucf.edu/ celebrates
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