The Water Protectors

Notes

In 2016, I visited Standing Rock Reservations, North Dakota, USA where thousands of Lakota people and their allies camped to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline being built across their ancient burial lands, a pipeline which had already burst, polluting millions of gallons of water. The following year, I visited Preston New Road, Blackpool, UK where over a hundred people had been protesting for years again Cuadrilla’s fracking operations, operations which irreversibly pollute farm lands with radioactive water. I attended and recorded further public demonstrations by Extinction Rebellion, Youth4Climate and Fridays for Future in the USA and UK, transcribing the chants, songs and marching rhythms performed by ordinary citizens as they demanded a genuine voice in their lives, their health, their future and for their children. This work is composed entirely from their exuberant, public music-making. It is dedicated to all of these people, and to the Ebonit Saxophone Quartet who are based in the beautiful, watery city of Amsterdam. Ebonit recorded The Water Protectors on Metiér CD MSV28578 for release in Autumn 2020.