It isn’t often that a Steinway grand piano ends up floating in Arctic waters. But that’s what happened earlier this month, when a composer performed a heartbreaking “Elegy For The Arctic”, an original composition designed to raise awareness about climate change in the fragile, frigid region.
Italian pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi composed the piece as a way of supporting Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign.
The campaign is currently encouraging government representatives at this week’s meeting of the OSPAR Commission to set up a protected area in international Arctic waters about the size of the UK. The OSPAR commission is a group of 15 European governments that is set up to protect the environment in the waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic.
Einaudi performed the composition in waters off the Wahlenbergbreen glacier in Norway, atop a wooden platform designed to look like an iceberg. At 8.5 feet wide and 33 feet long, the platform blended in with the freshly calved icebergs crashing off the glacier.
“Being here has been a great experience,”,” Einaudi said. “I could see the purity and fragility of this area with my own eyes and interpret a song I wrote to be played upon the best stage in the world. It is important that we understand the importance of the Arctic, stop the process of destruction and protect it.”
