When you hike in the Chugach Mountains, relationships between all things—some unfolding over thousands of years—can be readily observed everywhere you look. Nothing is inanimate. Everything seems to have a life and trajectory behind it; the massive glaciers propagate themselves from the ice field high in the peaks above, patiently sprawling across the valley for eons until they each find a spot that suits them. Their meltwater, like a vast circulatory system, feeds many streams and rivers, which in turn nourish the local marshes, fungi, plants, and animals. The mountains constantly make their motion known to you as well; several times a day, the unearthly rumble of distant rockslides punctuate the vast white noise of the wind and rivers. Even the force of gravity seems to have a mystical persona that hangs in the air. Everything is constantly drawn downward from the peaks to the valleys.

The calls of the Golden Crowned Sparrow seem to echo this state of being; though the melodies will vary slightly from place to place, they, too, always descend downward.

When I visited the Chugach Mountains, I spent much of my time transcribing the calls of the Golden Crowned Sparrows. Taking in their melodies, and the landscape around me, I had a bizarre, almost transcendental thought: A mountain must perceive a glacier similarly to the way I, or a sparrow, perceive a brook gurgling by our feet. Perhaps all forms of existence are just different sides of some cosmic coin. Perhaps through music, I can show how a sparrow's call can become a brook, and that brook can become a glacier...

Performed by Corvus Ensemble, March 2023 at Federal Hall, New York City.

A Sparrow is a Brook is a Glacier

An ongoing aspiration of BMI Award-winning composer and cellist, Nicholas Denton Protsack, is to seek new connections between music and the natural world. Called a "(composer) to keep a close eye on" by the Canadian Music Centre, Nicholas' ecologically informed music includes composed works, studio albums, and experimental improvisations, and has been featured in a wide variety of concert settings across North America, Europe, and New Zealand. Recent accomplishments include two first prizes in the 2021 SOCAN Foundation Young Composers Awards and commissioned works for the Toronto Summer Music Festival and the American Prize-winning Ensemble for These Times (E4TT).

	As a cellist, Nicholas is an active freelance performer and advocate of new music—frequently involved in collaborative projects that range from traditional to highly experimental concert idioms. Although primarily a chamber musician, he has also appeared as a soloist with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Conservatory Orchestra.

	Nicholas is currently undertaking a PhD in music at Victoria University of Wellington (NZ), studying with composers Michael Norris and Dugal McKinnon. His other major teachers have included David Garner (composition), Jean-Michel Fonteneau (cello), Jennifer Culp (cello), and Morna Howie (cello).