Summary:

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The "Music in Water" activity calls attention to the impacts of climate change on water resources using music. It comprises the use of hydrologic time-series as the basis for making contemporary mathematically based classical music compositions. These are intended to use the appeal of music and its sensitizing effect as a means to educate students about the impacts of climate change on water resources, which have palpable effects, such as long periods of drought, with none of very little rainfall, or short periods of intense downpours – which reflect well in dramatic music rhythms and pitch. The project counted so far with two activities: a first one at the Loulé Music Conservatorium (9th May, 2023) , planned for students between the ages of six and eighteen, where we used physical hydraulic models to demonstrate the groundwater component of the water cycle and the migration of contaminants; the demonstration was followed by the hearing of a premier of the music piece Hydrosonics, for two balafons and electronics (4 channels), by the contemporary composer Pedro Louzeiro (one of the professors), and performed by percussionists Vasco Ramalho and Pedro Branco. The second activity was made at the university of Algarve (19th June, 2023), for an audience of students and professors where Pedro Louzeiro gave a talk about the sonification of hydrologic time-series, followed by a concert where he made the premier of the piece Hydrosonics2 for percussion instruments of defined height, counting with Pedro Ramalho as the percussionist.

Though the activity is not community monitoring, it is seen as way of engaging students to the subject, as some of them are also studying in the schools that participate in the “Descovering the Aquifer”. The activity will expand in the near future to include other forms of art to best recruit students that follow the artistic education.