Take a long walk across Earth and its eras with “Pale Blue,” the auditory experience by Glen Whitehead, D.M.A., Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) Chair and Professor.
Armed with a microphone, and often his trumpet, Whitehead mixes sounds from multiple sources in nature with his own artistic expression to create instrumental tracks that display the variety of life and history on our planet.
“I love discovering the world through the exploration of sound, particularly in the intersections of natural environments and the complex human-made world,” Whitehead shared. “This album is a culmination of my sonic discoveries over the last decade in a variety of locations around the world, captured in field recordings and combined with improvised and composed parts. I study what I can of any given area and seek out unique circumstances of sound, which of course, all live in multidimensional contexts – with interactivity, histories, drama, the fingerprints of climate change and all the energy of life. Improvisation is the overarching methodology that connects me to natural environments and I conceptualize as a free improvisation ensemble.”
With recordings from Colorado, France, Greece, Hawaii, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Turkey and Wyoming, Whitehead incorporates background and field noises of all kinds – from dreamlike, calming sounds of ocean waves and animals in their natural habitat to the frenzied din of a populous and bustling city.
“I let the natural sounds and the feel of an environment create the blueprint of a composition and have developed a whole system of environmental ‘music theory’ that combines concepts from soundscape ecology, improvised music, philosophy, and more, that I also teach in a few of my courses,” said Whitehead. “As far as balance – spatiality, depth, and distance across the orchestration of these compositions are the canvas of the architecture. This is informed by the both real and imagined ‘auditory horizon,’ a core exercise of critical listening which seeks to map the totality of a location from the closest to farthest, softest to loudest proximities of sound from all directions.”
A few tracks have other artists accompanying Whitehead’s trumpet with their own specialties, including UCCS Director of Humanities and Associate Professor Colin McAllister, D.M.A., who brings his skill and talent with the guitar to the album, and musician Mert Günal, who plays the ney, a traditional wind instrument used prominently in Turkish, Arabic and Persian music. Whitehead also worked with Philip Blackburn on Neuma Records, which produced “Pale Blue.”
“Working with Neuma Records artistic director Philip Blackburn was an inspiring collaboration,” said Whitehead. “He’s a master of his craft with decades of experience releasing hundreds of projects with incredible artists. UCCS Music has a long history with Philip as a former artist-in-residence, and his father was a professor at UCCS for decades. When our paths crossed many years ago, it was a purely a musical meeting, so, the UCCS coincidence continues to inspire!”
Whitehead also worked with Erdam Helvacioglu, out of Turkey, to mesh his recordings with composition, and mentioned how grateful he is to have the opportunity to make “Pale Blue.”
“Even with mastering technology being more accessible than ever before, it takes a real professional with a unique set of skills and much experience to imbue auditory magic to finalize a recording,” Whitehead said of Helvacioglu. “Creating this project as a contribution to my research and creative work record as a professor is one of the greatest privileges of my professional life that I don’t take for granted. The ability to fully explore innovative approaches to music-making is emblematic of the UCCS spirit.”
Listen to Pale Blue in its entirety here, and keep an eye out for future live performances, some performed by UCCS’s own Symphony 21.
Whitehead is an internationally recognized award-winning trumpet artist and composer. His creative work often explores instrumental and vocal music as immersive soundscapes, sonic theatre, installation, environmental exploration and cultural discourse in order to build compelling new interdisciplinary investigations across the arts and sciences. In 2006, he founded the interdisciplinary Music Program at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs where he is currently a Professor of Music, the Co-Director of the Bachelor of Innovation™ degree and created the Creative Music Performance & Technology, Composition & Sound Design Bachelor’s degree tracks. Learn more about Whitehead here.