Susan Wilson
Composer, improviser, and flutist Linda J. Chase writes instrumental chamber music, choral pieces, jazz, and experimental music. Blending the boundaries between improvisation and composition, she explores creating music beyond categorization and often focuses on themes of peace and justice. She draws inspiration from the natural world and seeks connections between music, nature, and spiritually. Chase is a professor at Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory where she teaches Ecomusicology, Music, Spirit & Transformation, and leads the Interdisciplinary Arts Ensemble.
Her Japan Foundation Fellowship (coinciding with 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami) resulted in music incorporating the poetry of Izumi Shikibu, Ono no Komachi, and Jane Hirshfield. This led to a collaboration with Hirshfield and a suite of songs called Hope is the Hardest Love We Carry, which was performed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and New England Conservatory. Chase was Artist in Residence at Grand Canyon National Park where she composed Grand Canyon Sketches for voice and string quartet. While Artist in Residence at the Morris Graves Institute, she wrote First Comes Darkness then the Moon for flute, cello, and rhythm section. As composer in residence at Old Cambridge Baptist Church she composed The City is Burning, a concert length multi-media piece drawing on multi-faith sacred texts and poetry.
Chase holds degrees in Composition, Contemporary Improvisation, Sustainability Education through Music, Expressive Arts, and is certified in Deep Listening®. She is a member of composer’s network Landscape Music. Her recent chapter on environmental justice education through music and contemplative listening can be found in the Routledge Handbook of Grassroots Climate Activism. She is currently writing a book on listening.
“As a musician and educator, I wrestle with how we as artists can become more environmentally and socially responsible,” says Chase. “We realize that the world is in a precarious state, but how do we act on that information, and contextualize it into our lives as musicians? I believe that artists can offer an inspired vision of the world and participate in a shift in our perceptions and values.”
Albums
For Our Common Home
Catalog Number: TROY1995
FOR OUR COMMON HOME – Resounding Ecojustice is an impassioned appeal to preserve the Earth that nourishes us — and like its subject, it is ethereally beautiful. This oratorio is based on Laudato Si’, an encyclical issued by Pope Francis calling on humanity to acknowledge the urgency of the environmental crisis and work toward building a just and sustainable world. Inspired by a canticle of St. Francis of Assisi, the message focuses on environmental justice, addressing the impact of the climate crisis on the most vulnerable communities.
The music transcends pre-existing concepts of stylistic boundaries blending classical, jazz, gospel, and klezmer idioms, with vocal styles ranging from whispered text to full-throated anthems. FOR OUR COMMON HOME highlights compassion and solidarity and relates its message through its sheer beauty, communicative power, and skillful use of text. Immediate beauty, but with depth — much like nature itself.