Composed and performed by Frank Horvat.
On March 28, 2009, I was invited to perform at an Earth Hour party hosted by a law firm in one of Torontos skyscrapers in the Financial District. As the whos who of Torontos elite hobnobbed admiring the lack of lights in the sprawling skyline, I quietly improvised. Once 8:30PM hit, the lights went out and all the partygoers congregated in a room on the opposite side of the building to listen to speeches. I was left alone quietly playing away, immersing myself and enjoying the darknessthis is where Earth Hour, this composition, was born.
Composing a 60-minute continuous piano piece is something that at first seemed a little daunting. As a composer, I was challenged how do I make a composition interesting where both the performer and listeners are immersed in the dark and have the sound of the piano and the darkness be an equal partner in the experience? I quickly realized that creating a soundtrack to being alone in ones thoughts can be so many different things: reflective, calming, scary, empty, or happy, just to name a few. This made me realize that even though it was one cohesive piece, the music could change thematically to reflect the many varied emotions that one can feel when being in the dark.
From beginning to end, Earth Hour takes exactly 60 minutes to perform, not a second less or more. Performers are to use an earpiece so they can play along with a metronome to ensure that this takes place. Earth Hour is divided into 12 sections/themes, each lasting exactly 5 minutes. The first 6 themes are contrasting from each other based on a sort of random note picking pattern formula I created that is correlated and based on the letters of my name and my wifes. The last 6 themes are variations of the first 6 themes, except that theyre presented in reverse order giving the overall composition a palindrome structure. One of the reasons I did this was so the ending of the piece could be seamlessly connected to the beginning allowing a performance of the piece to last more than just one hour, if a performer (or performers) so desired. A sense of start or completion isnt as important as the experience itself.
Whether you listen to the entire piece or just a snippet, my hope is that a listener will be able to find peace and time for inner reflection when listening to it thinking about how they can make themselves and the world around them a better place. Sitting in the dark doesnt just have to occur on the last Saturday of March every year.
Video courtesy of Strategic Storytellers. More information at http://frankhorvat.com.
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