Blued Trees Opera

The Blued Trees project began in 2015 with a symphony. It is now an opera-in-progress, with a first iteration planned summer 2023, at the Parsonage Gallery, Searsport, Maine. Aviva Rahmani is the Lead Artist and the project is also in development with:

The project has received support from the Pollock Krasner Foundation.

Blued Trees Opera recitative excerpt ( https://vimeo.com/806542741 )

Video: proof of concept. Performed by Aviva Rahmani for LASER 2023 CAA. Shot and edited by Joan Logue. February 2023. This is an example of how the material for projection might be used with the music I composed for this recitative of the courtroom drama.

Blued Trees Opera aria excerpt

Materials: Mov

This excerpt is an example of a duet that explores the emotion and drama of individuals performers in the ecocide crisis.

Date: 2023

Libretto by Catherine Filloux, composition by Julia Schwartz under the direction of Aviva Rahmani.

One Tree One Note with Cows. Detail from The Blued Trees Symphony. Photograph by Robin Scully. The Blued Trees Symphony, Bent Mountain, VA.2016

Materials: Photographic documentation of GPS located tree painted with a casein of buttermilk and ultramarine blue pigment on a tree trunk to establish the work as permanent biogeographic sculpture, on Brush Mountain, VA. location of proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Brief Synopsis: Shows a full GPS located tree-note The Blued Trees Symphony, in one of numerous 1/3-mile measures. The GPS patterns correspond to an aerial musical score. The pattern on each tree is a vertical sine wave.

This is one of hundreds of images of individual tree-notes and "chords" of tree-notes that might be included in the opera projections.

The Blued Trees Symphony Global 2017

 10 ’x 15’

Materials: Suspended, ultramarine blue casein painted local quince branches. Lighting and shadows.

Brief Synopsis: Photomontage and immersive sound installation of captured audio of birds from one painted tree’s acoustic landscape at site opposing New York State pipelines.

Installation created for Carbon Art Project curated by Yu Hyun-Ju at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), Art Gallery, Daejeon, South Korea. illustrates sea level rise when all Arctic and Antarctic ice melts. Remaining refugia for terrestrial life are symbolically indicated as measures from The Blued Trees Symphony. Symbols indicate measures of the score depicting potential areas that could survive the Anthropocene effects of demographic conflict, drought and sea level rise.

This is one of several configurations in installation of branches with wall visuals that require an audience to pass through branches to access information.

Coda VA Tech

Blued Trees Installation detail #1 2016

75’ x 25’

Materials: Branches painted with a casein of buttermilk and ultramarine blue pigment and 10-      60” x 36” panels printed on translucent paper suspended with industrial wire from gallery ceiling with immersive audio of bird song.

Brief Synopsis: Hanging panels of text excerpted from writings by the artist on pursuing the legal basis for challenging the current definition of public good that permits corporations to take land for fossil fuel development. Installation at the Perspective Gallery of Virginia Tech was setting for performed recitation of the legal premises as a chorale for the Coda of The Blued Trees Symphony.  Sample banner text is, “Art, to a large extent, represents a spiritual life that people… Sometimes for… Sometimes for its evocative values… sometimes for its economic value… but sometimes…”

This text and the assembly of suspended branches exemplifies the kinds of issues and choreographic elements being developed in the libretto and in the staging.

Lost Forests Found 2020

144" x 240" x 48 (Height)", Individual branches assembled up to 40". Casein paint on branches in grass. Governors Island, NY.

Brief Synopsis: Drone footage taken by Giorgi and Nina Tushev on Governors Island, NYC, of assembled painted branches eventually auctioned as blue art mulch to support community gardens.

This is an example of how branches might be distributed for the audience to pass through as they enter the space of the opera.

Massacres of Blued Trees.

Photo collage composed 2021.

Imagery represents details of some of the material to be projected during the opera.

Listening to the Tree.

Tree interpreter (Toya Lillard) bearing witness in Mock Trial for The Blued Trees Symphony

Cardoza School of Law 2018

An example of a scene that might be replicated in the portion of the opera about the trial.

Blued Trees Black Skies, 2019, Live staging for performance

Materials: 15' x 30' x 20', ink on Gampi paper, with painted branches. 

One example of how a detail of the staging might be set up for performers.

Aspirations Maquette staging for the Blued Trees opera. 2023

Composed for performance at the Parsonage Gallery exhibit, Searsport, Maine planned for October 2023 with opera performance. This shows the setting in which one iteration of the opera might be staged.