Scablands

Instrumentation: SATBar Saxophone Quartet, Electronics, and Video

Duration: ca. 8:30

Program Note:

Scablands takes inspiration from my home in Eastern Washington which (along with parts of Montana, Idaho, and Oregon) was shaped by the cataclysmic Missoula Floods of the most recent ice age.

As the planet warmed and glacial structures retreated north, vast natural reservoirs of water were suddenly unleashed upon the Pacific Northwest, rushing along the Columbia River drainage basin and out to the Pacific Ocean. In the process, these massive forces of water carved channels and ravines, drilled massive craters into the ground, deposited “erratic” boulders in the middle of prairies, etched away at basalt columns, and left impossibly large ripples in the earth, forming what we now call the Scablands of Eastern Washington. Importantly, these floods also deposited loess (a nutrient-rich form of sediment) throughout the region, forming the Columbia and Willamette Valleys into the fertile agricultural centers that they are today.

It is difficult to imagine the magnitude and force of the water that carved out such an arid and dusty landscape. Yet, reminders of both the destructive and generative influence of these floods are present everywhere in the region – as channels, potholes, coulees, basins, boulders, basalt, and as the rolling and vibrant hills of my home.

The composer thanks Yun Qu Tan for graciously providing the samples used in the electronic component of the work. Additional thanks to geologist, author, and researcher Bruce Bjornstad for generously granting permission to use his drone footage of the Scablands to create the accompanying video.