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In recognition of Maine’s climate research leaders, Maine’s Bicentennial, and the impact of warming water to the Gulf of Maine, the Maine Science Festival (MSF) commissioned GRAMMY award winner Lucas Richman to write a symphonic exploration about climate change in the Gulf of Maine. The Warming Sea is a multimedia piece, having had its world premiere with the Bangor Symphony Orchestra in 2022 (originally schedule for March 2020, but delayed by the pandemic) which served as the 2022 Maine Science Festival headliner event.
For The Warming Sea, the MSF organized interviews between Richman and Mainers who have direct knowledge of climate change in the Gulf of Maine, including long time fisheries experts Robin Alden and Ted Ames; scientists and experts from the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Friends of Casco Bay, and the Maine Coast Heritage Trust. Additionally, it is imperative to ensure that the future have a voice, so outreach visits and interviews with middle-school classes became a critical part of this project.
Richman noted, “As we launched into this project, I only had the most superficial understanding about our ocean and the havoc that climate change is wreaking on the numerous plant and animal ecosystems that exist beneath the water’s surface. In the process of learning more about the subject, a universal devotion and passion for the sea informed all of the discussions I’ve been able to have with Mainers up and down the eastern seaboard. It is now my task to wed the scientific data offered to me into a creative work that properly expresses that devotion and passion, hopefully serving to motivate the listener beyond a mere passive acknowledgment of our ever-increasing climate danger.”
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Hope Begins with Truth (concluding anthem from The Warming Sea):