sound festival:
Going Green in Aberdeen
Based in Aberdeen, sound champions the creation and discovery of new music. They support composers, engage with local communities, and offer educational opportunities through their year-round activity.
The organisation has a strong commitment to tackling climate change, highlighted through soundfestival which put environmental issues at the forefront of their programme, commissioning and their way of working.
sound has been committed to environmental issues for some time, keen to reduce their environmental impact and carbon emissions as fast as possible.
Image: Phalacracorax, copyright - Nikola Cindric
They have a holistic environmental and ethical policy, joined the Scottish Classical Sustainability group, and are part of the Green Arts Initiative, an interactive community of Scottish arts organisations working to reduce their environmental impact.
They believe that to limit the destruction caused by climate change, they needed to think beyond carbon offsetting and instead look at more urgent action and lifestyle choices. While staff members were already conscientious in their individual actions, such as recycling or travel choices, the organisation decided to look more broadly and to see if they could embed environmental action into the very way they worked.
“We believe it is possible to establish and demonstrate a new and genuinely sustainable way of delivering the arts.”
- sound
As global leaders flocked to Scotland for COP26, soundfestival highlighted the climate emergency through their festival.
They broke new ground by encouraging a ‘no-fly’ commitment from performers to help reduce carbon emissions, asking that artists use alternative transport to get to the festival. Artists aimed to be as green as they could, travelling to the festival using trains, electric cars and even cycling.
Audiences and participants were encouraged to adopt the same approach and to travel by train if they were coming to the festival from any distance.
Image: Florentin Ginot 3, copyright Marc Ginot
However, the ‘no-fly’ idea brought with it some challenges, including costs (train travel is significantly more expensive than economy flights), restrictions around transporting instruments and being unable to charge electric cars.
These issues highlighted that for people to take steps to reduce their carbon footprint, the very infrastructures in which we operate need rethinking. Barriers need to be removed and incentives introduced to make it practical and affordable for people to join the climate challenge in a direct way.
The festival also chose to print all promotional material on recycled paper, to buy second-hand glassware instead of throwaway cups and to use car-share schemes instead of taxis where possible. The topic of environmental action is now one of the lenses through which sound view their operations, using this to guide how they work and what they do.
76
artists and composers took part
60
were from Scotland
7
were from the UK
9
were international
The festival programme itself put the climate emergency centre-stage and featured specially commissioned works and environmentally themed performances to draw attention to the impact of global warming and explore the challenges we face.
Image: Distance, credit Tim Hand
Works such as Distance, an innovative commission from Laura Bowler, opened the festival. This ground-breaking new work explored our relationship with flying, the environment and climate change. It was performed by soprano, Juliet Fraser, who was present in-person in the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen singing alongside Talea Ensemble who were live-streamed into the performance space from New York, USA.
The festival also worked to raise awareness of landfill and throw-away culture through Matthew Herbert’s More More More which was performed using amplified rubbish collected by young people. These ‘instruments’ were created in a special workshop with young people who worked with Pete Stollery, Bea Dawkins and Alistair MacDonald to create electronic soundscapes. The festival also gave younger children the opportunity to explore environmental themes. Karen Power led the Natural Creators workshop with 3–6-year-olds exploring sound and music through natural objects like stones and shells.
Travelling by train, there were
28
return trips from Edinburgh/Glasgow to Aberdeen
5
return trips from London to Aberdeen
8
return trips from France and Germany to Aberdeen
There was
1
trip by electric car to and from Manchester
1
artist even cycled to and from Dunblane
Tackling the climate crisis intertwined with the festival's longstanding support for new music through spotlight concerts, a new feature comprising 30-minute performances.
Image: Ailie Robertson
Not only did these give a platform to emerging and local composers and composers but all four of these concerts directly addressed climate change with a number of new works. These included 1.5 Degrees, a new work by local young composer Amy Stewart for piano quartet combined with audio-visuals to raise awareness of global warming; Jamie Perera’s Oil, Coal and Gas for three cellos; Georgina MacDonell Finlayson’s Nature is in Freefall and Aileen Sweeney’s Luminous Tree - Movement II from They Brush the Skyline.