Climate change, inequality, a rising tide— these are just some of the issues that the Crossroads Project hopes to draw attention to through the power of music.  

On Friday, October 6th, the Elgin Community College Arts Center hosted Rising Tide: The Crossroads Project in the Blizzard Theater. 

The event featured Utah State University’s resident string quartet, the Fry Street Quartet, joined by Robert Davies, a physics professor at USU. Described as a blend of modern string music with poetic lecture and provoking imagery, Rising Tide is a multimedia performance that aims to explain environmental issues through the unification of art and science.

“At the moment, our life support system, our biosphere, is undergoing a rapid and accelerating collapse, and we humans are disassembling [this system],” said Davies in a lecture he gave to students at ECC. 

As a physics professor, Davies didn’t originally plan on touring around the country teaching environmentalism with a string quartet . His journey began in 2008, when he started giving lectures on climate change while he was working in England. 

“[Students] were understanding on an intellectual level, but would walk out and go on with their lives like normal,” Davies said. “I was looking for a way to impel some response, and I’ve had powerful experiences with chamber music. In fact, I would always get shushed at concerts I attended in England because I was always scrambling around for a notebook. The music was unlocking thinking on the little physics puzzles I had in my head.”

When Davies returned to Utah, he discovered the Fry Street Quartet through USU. Remembering his moving experiences with music in England, he invited the quartet to collaborate with him. Thus began the Crossroads Project, a combination of what Davies describes as compelling information, vivid imagery, and powerful music in a performance that is both artistic and scientific. 

“It was an issue that was important to all of us,” Fry Street Quartet Cellist Anne Francis Bayless said. “We didn’t really know what [the project] was going to be, but we knew that it was important, so we jumped on board.”

The quartet has performed pieces from many famous composers, such as Shostakovich and Beethoven, but as of recent, they have mainly focused on performing original works commissioned for this project by composer Laura Kaminsky.

“We originally didn’t have anything written specifically for the project,” said Robert Waters, one of the violinists in the quartet. “It just didn’t really work, so we realized that we needed the bulk of the music written specifically for the project. We came across this composer, Laura Kaminsky, who had written a lot on ecological themes before, and it was off to the races.”

In order to guide Kaminsky’s composition, Davies presented her with a graph detailing the emotional highs and lows of the performance. He wanted Kaminsky’s music to reflect the audience’s envisioned reaction; the grief, the hope, and the frustration that they may feel. 

“If you think about it, [the music] is almost classical in structure,” said violist Bradley Ottesen, commenting on the structure of each act of the performance. “Despite being modern music, it is structured like a classical string quartet.”

Additionally, the Rising Tide performance includes art from artist Rebecca Allan and photography from photojournalist Garth Lenz, as well as many others. During the performance, a slideshow of images of people shopping were followed by images of a dried up lake, a river filled with trash, and several animals covered in polluted substances, alluding to the effects of hyper-consumerism. 

“The photojournalists, in particular, Lu Guang and Garth Lenz, have taken great risks,” said Rebecca McFaul, a violinist in the quartet. “Lu Guang was arrested in China and disappeared for some time. Garth managed to photograph the tar sands from the air, and shortly thereafter it became an illegal act.”

The Crossroads Project acknowledges how, when presented with such large issues, people can feel overwhelmed and hopeless. 

“We need a mindset not so obsessed with hope or despair,” Davies said. “ We need a mindset firmly grounded in resolve. Hope isn’t free. The time has come for us to believe what we know and behave like we know it.”

The Crossroads Project team advised the audience to take action, specifically, to focus on something you are passionate about and find out how you can use that passion to make change, even if it takes you out of your comfort zone.

“No matter how we choose to move forward, there are no non-radical futures before us,” Davies said in regard to Earth’s current situation. 

The Crossroads Project finished their performance by reminding the audience that we are not alone, and through the power of community, we can be lifted by the rising tide.