The Blued Trees Symphony

Aviva Rahmani will be presenting The Blued Trees Symphony this Thursday, November 7th, for “Law: Perspectives on Environmental Justice” the University of Minnesota Spotlight Series 2019-20, a collaborative partnership between Northrop, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the University Honors Program. The event begins at 3:30 pm in the Best Buy Theater of Northrop, 4th Floor, 84 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN.

Please join us if you are in the area, the event is free and open to the public. I would love to connect and see you there!

Blue dots on the map indicate sites of “tree notes” in the Blued Trees Symphony.

Blued Trees Symphony

The Blued Trees Symphony launched on the Summer Solstice, June 21, 2015, with an overture in Peekskill, New York. It is now installed in many miles of proposed pipeline expansions, and each 1/3 measure of those miles has been copyrighted for protection. Variations of each movement are based on an iterative score created for the overture. All installations are created at the invitation of landowners. The overture was accompanied by an international Greek Chorus at a total of twenty sites internationally. Individual trees were painted and musical variations of the score were performed to echo the theme of connectivity to all life. The score is simultaneously spatial and acoustic and will conclude with a coda, a final movement that recapitulates and resolves previous themes, on the American presidential Election day, November, 2016. 

The Peekskill site was chosen because the pipelines would be 105 feet from the infrastructure of the failing Indian Point nuclear facility, 30 miles from New York City. The score corresponds to a pattern that prevents the movement of heavy machinery. The paint for each vertical sine wave is a casein slurry of non-toxic Ultramarine blue and buttermilk that grows moss (based on a Japanese gardening technique).

Blued Trees Facebook Page

Video Links: 

Blued Trees Symphony Overture

Virginia Film


Even if you can’t attend please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to the project through NYFA (the New York Foundation for the Arts)! 

Blued Trees is a division of Gulf to Gulf, a project fiscally sponsored by NYFA (New York Foundation for the Arts), a 501©3, tax exempt organization founded in 1971 to work with the arts community throughout New York State to develop and facilitate programs in all disciplines. NYFA will receive grants on behalf of the project and ensure the use of grant funds in accordance with the grant agreements as well as provide program or financial reports as required. Any donations made to the project through NYFA are tax deductible!