After previous projects about protein transport and North Sea Sound artist Remco de Klokkenaar has once again a project with roots in WUR. It is a 20-minute composition about life on and below the surface, inspired by research conducted by the Chair of Soil Biology group.
The piece can be heard live on Friday 20 September at the Bevrijdingskerk in Wageningen, where it will be performed by De Harmonie Wageningen. For the composition, De Kloeckenaar worked closely with university lecturer Marie Zwiesloot and postdoc Julia Bongiorno. They gave him a kind of “crash course in the life of soil” and lent him their best books. “After a week of reading, it was as if I was on another planet, full of Aliens “I’ve never heard of it before but it can do amazing things,” he says.
This admiration and admiration for soil life is clearly reflected in the song De Klokkenaars. He gives the different soil organisms and processes a “sound” through specific melodic lines and instrumental combinations. For example, the up and down clarinet lines symbolize the stirrup, a type of worm that plays a crucial role in absorbing water in grasslands due to its vertical tunnels that can be up to three meters deep. Another important function of these worms’ ecosystem – delivering nutrients to the soil by defecating – is depicted using a bass trombone. “You can use that to create this deep, low wind,” explains De Hermit.
three quarters of the time
For his composition, he also consulted Ron de Goede, who for decades has been one of the driving forces behind WUR’s research into global standards for measuring and expressing soil quality based on nematodes. Based on his input, de Heerck composed “Ode to Nematodes,” one of two parts of a piece dedicated to a specific soil organism. The poem was given a three-quarter (or actually: six-eighth) length, because: “Ron taught me that nematodes have a symmetrical, three-dimensional body structure.” I wanted to reflect this fascinating fact in the music.
In addition to the two soil organisms (the nematodes and the springtail), the composition also “sings” about three types of soil: forest soil, grassland, and arable soil. These are soils with increasing returns for humans in terms of food supply, but also with increasing degrees of cultivation. This has an impact on the life of the soil, as the piece emphasizes: after the sound of the brass instruments that represent the ploughs, the melody of the soil fungi fades away – and ploughing has a devastating effect on the underground fungal networks.
Audio translations
Since not everyone is fluent in the musical language of soil life right away, each part of the piece is preceded by an explanation by De Hermit (in Dutch, for foreigners there is a leaflet with English translation). He provides, so to speak, an audio translation with short scientific poetic texts. “So you know what to look for and understand what you are hearing,” he explains.
Tickets for the September 20th concert are available! Available onlineIt also provides access to subsequent soil animal safaris (in the Netherlands and EN), led by Marie Zwitsloot, Julia Bongiorno and several other WUR soil experts. The event kicks off in the 10th edition of Soil Animal Daysthat Citizen scienceNIOO-KNAW project.
More Stories
Which can cause an increase in nitrogen.
The Central State Real Estate Agency has no additional space to accommodate Ukrainians.
The oystercatcher, the “unlucky national bird,” is increasingly breeding on rooftops.