Italian Pianist Ludovico Einaudi Plays a Grand Piano While Floating in the Middle of the Arctic Ocean

Above, watch Ital­ian pianist and com­pos­er Ludovi­co Ein­au­di per­form an orig­i­nal com­po­si­tion, “Ele­gy for the Arc­tic,” on a grand piano, float­ing right in the mid­dle of the Arc­tic Ocean. In one of his most chal­leng­ing per­for­mances, Ein­au­di played “Ele­gy for the Arc­tic” for the very first time–a piece ded­i­cat­ed to the preser­va­tion of the Arc­tic. The home of endan­gered wildlife, the region also helps reg­u­late our frag­ile cli­mate. And our future depends part­ly on whether we keep it intact.

To pull off this pro­duc­tion, a Green­peace ship trans­port­ed Ein­au­di and his grand piano to the seas north of Nor­way, and put them on a large plat­form. Says Green­peace:

The mas­sive ear­ly retreat of sea ice due to the effects of cli­mate change allowed the con­struc­tion of a 2.6 x 10 metre arti­fi­cial ice­berg, made from more than 300 tri­an­gles of wood attached togeth­er and weigh­ing a total of near­ly two tonnes. A grand piano was then placed on top of the plat­form.

You can see Ein­au­di per­form­ing right in front of a large glac­i­er, while ice sheets fall aways as he plays. It’s a sight to behold.

If you would like to help pro­tect the Arc­tic, you can donate to Green­peace here.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Glob­al Warm­ing: A Free Course from UChica­go Explains Cli­mate Change

A Beau­ti­ful Drone’s Eye View of Antarc­ti­ca

The Arc­tic Light

The Mak­ing of a Stein­way Grand Piano, From Start to Fin­ish


by | Permalink | Comments (7) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Comments (7)
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Leave a Reply

Quantcast