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Habitats

Marine Habitats Stop

Laidlaw Music Centre

Alex South
Air out of the Night (excerpt)
Alex South (clarinet)
Members of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and St Andrews Chamber Orchestra

Composed for large improvising ensemble with soloist and electronics, Air Out Of The Night was inspired by the beautiful Irish melody Port na bPúcaí, reputedly composed in response to the sounds of humpback whales heard off the Blasket Islands, and incorporates field recordings of humpback song made by Edda Magnúsdóttir and colleagues in the North Atlantic. Driven by humpback rhythms, Air Out Of The Night explores a curious harmonic coincidence between whale and human song. Partly-notated but mainly improvised, and beginning and ending with humpback song, the piece falls into four main sections: strange noises, bits of a tune, nothing like melody and rephrases itself into the air. These titles are drawn from Seamus Heaney’s homage to Port na bPúcaí, his poem The Given Note.

Ocean habitats are what we call the places where animals and plants live in the ocean. Many of the threats at the other stops have negatively effected habitats and are directly connected. Climate change directly effects habitats, as well as pollution such as plastics, mining and overfishing. When sea creatures lose their homes, they have to find new ones which may not be suitable.

Word Puzzle

To complete the trail and claim your free prize* at our final stop at the Wardlaw Museum, please take the second letter of habitats and add to your collection of letters.

Once you have all 10 letters, please rearrange them to spell an ocean-based word which will give you your prize.

*One prize per household

Continue the trail and find the next stop:

Find out more information about the locations of the stops at https://divein.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/ocean-odyssey/
(or click on Ocean Odyssey through the menu)