The [Uncertain] Four Seasons

A unique variation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons for every orchestra in the world, recomposed using climate modelling for the year 2050.

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The [uncertain] Four Seasons is a reimagining of Vivaldi’s masterpiece The Four Seasons, that changes as the science for 2050 changes. By using geospatial data each variation is unique to a community on the earth. It’s a living composition of our local and present futures.

A collaboration between the UN, agencies AKQA and Jung Von Mat, scientists, and architect of the Paris Agreement Christiana Figueres. To date it’s been performed across 6 continents, at TED and COP26, and has performances booked through to 2023.

It is our hope that one day the composition returns to Vivaldi’s preindustrial masterpiece.

The primary outcome of climate science is a series of scenarios: stories of how life might be if we don’t act now. But such scenarios are rational, dry explanations of ever changing data.

Our brief was to transform ever evolving science into something adaptive that local communities could collectively rally around, discuss, and take direct action through their leaders or the UN’s ActNow platform.

The project brought scientists and orchestras together to reinterpret Vivaldi’s original. The score has been altered using the latest climate modelling data from the IPCC report’s RCP 8.5 future scenario, which assumes no concerted effort to restrict greenhouse gas emissions.

Using a sophisticated algorithm, a musical design system has been created. Music theory is combined with climate modelling to generate local variations of Vivaldi’s original composition for the year 2050. The algorithm alters the score to account for predicted changes in rainfall, biodiversity and extreme weather events as laid out in the IPCC’s report.

A passage in summer that originally represented a peaceful afternoon nap is now an anxiety-filled dream in a time where wildfires, food insecurity, and other disasters will become increasingly common. In the composition for Shanghai, there’s no music at all. If emissions grow at the highest levels, the low-lying city is likely to be underwater by 2050.

Launching with a performance by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the 2021 Sydney Festival, a localised variation of The [Uncertain] Four Seasons has been released for every orchestra in the world. Almost 1000 musicians have performed their variation for audiences worldwide in the lead up to and for 2021 UN Climate Change Conference.

The compositions transpose knowledge into feeling, evoking a new sense for what a climate-changed planet would mean for humanity, and how diverse the impacts will be: from longer and drier droughts to more intense storm seasons, and the complete disappearance of the landscape itself.