Rehearsal recording of first half - May 2017. American Composers Orchestra; David Tinervia, baritone.

Part 1: Into the Weddell Sea
Part 2: Trapped in Pack Ice 

Music composed by: Nina C. Young
Text written by: Nina C. Young and David Tinervia
Optional Generative video by: R. Luke DuBois

"Out of whose womb came the ice" creates a sonic and visual glimpse of a segment of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-17).  In August 1914, at the onset of WWI, polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton gathered a crew of 27 men and set sail for the South Atlantic.  They were in pursuit of the last unclaimed prize of the Heroic Age of Exploration: to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent by foot.  Upon entering the Weddell Sea, they encountered unusually foul weather.  Weaving south through the treacherous seas of ice, their ship, the Endurance, became trapped only 85 miles from their destination.  After months of waiting for the ice to break, the ship was crushed and sank, leaving the crew stranded upon the ice floes without any means of contacting the outside world.  In pursuit of survival, Shackleton and his crew endured 22 months traversing ice floes up the Antarctic Peninsula.  The final leg included a deadly 800-mile open boat journey in their lifeboat, the James Caird, in hopes of reaching South Georgia Island.  The crew was rescued on 30 August 1916; everyone survived.  Though this expedition failed, it remains one of the most miraculous stories of polar exploration and human survival.

"Out of whose womb came the ice" looks at the expedition from the time they enter the Weddell Sea (December 1914) to the sinking of the Endurance (November 1915).  The vocal and orchestra music focuses on the crew’s perception of the Endurance in relationship to their surroundings.  She goes from being simply a ship, to a lifeline and memento that connects them to the world they left behind.  Once she sinks, they are truly left alone.  The visuals and electronics offer narrative elements drawn directly from documents of the journey: journal entries of the crew and images by expedition’s official photographer Frank Hurley.

Out of whose womb came the ice (excerpt) for baritone voice, orchestra, and electronics

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The music of composer Nina C. Young (b.1984) is characterized by an acute sensitivity to tone color, manifested in aural images of vibrant, arresting immediacy. Her experience in the electronic music studio informs her acoustic work, which takes as its given not melody and harmony, but sound itself, continuously metamorphosing from one state to another. Her musical voice draws from elements of the classical canon, modernism, spectralism, American experimentalism, minimalism, electronic music, and popular idioms. Her projects, ranging from concert pieces to interactive installations, strive to create unique sonic environments that can be appreciated by a wide variety of audiences while challenging stylistic boundaries, auditory perception, and notions of temporality. 

Young’s works have been presented by Carnegie Hall, the National Gallery, the Whitney Museum, LA Phil’s Next on Grand, and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Liquid Music Series. Her music has garnered international acclaim through performances by the American Composers Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Aizuri Quartet, Either/Or, the JACK Quartet, wild Up, and Yarn/Wire. Winner of the 2015-16 Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome, Young has also received a Koussevitzky Commission, a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship, a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Salvatore Martirano Memorial Award, Aspen Music Festival's Jacob Druckman Prize, and honors from BMI, IAWM, and ASCAP/SEAMUS. 

IN 2019 Carnegie Hall commissioned "Out of whose womb came the ice" with the American Composers Orchestra: for baritone, orchestra, electronics, and generative video, commenting on the ill-fated Ernest Shackleton Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17.  Other recent projects include "Tread softly" that opened the NY Philharmonic’s Project 19, a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh from the Philadelphia Orchestra, and "The Glow that Illuminates, The Glare that Obscures" for the American Brass Quintet alongside an immersive audio-visual installation version commissioned by EMPAC showcasing their wavefield synthesis audio system.

A graduate of McGill University and MIT, Young completed her DMA at Columbia University. She is an Assistant Professor of Composition as USC’s Thornton School of Music.  She serves as Co-Artistic Director of New York’s Ensemble Échappé.  Her music is published by Peermusic Classical.

ninacyoung.com