"Winter Raven" (Ukiuq Tulugaq) is Matthew Burtner's first large-scale multimedia opera/theatre work. Composed from 1998 to 2002, the piece helped define a new type of music composition in which environmental systems are mapped into music through a methodology called "ecoacoustics". The piece brings systems of environmental change directly into the fabric of the music composition. In Winter Raven, the behavior of snow, ice, wind and sunlight in the Alaskan environment interact through music and theater in a dazzling personification of ecology.

"Winter Raven" was part of Burtner's dissertation at Stanford University. The piece premiered at the University of Virginia on March 28, 2003. The full staged work was also performed in 2011 at Whitewater Wisconsin.

Following "Winter Raven" Burtner also composed "Kuik" (2006) and "Auksalaq" (2010). The three operas together form a five-hour multimedia trilogy about Burtner's Alaska home.

Artistic Overview:

In Inupiaq mythology, a large black bird called Tulugaq (Raven) created the world. The creation story begins with Raven flying through a profound darkness in the falling snow. In all of the universe only Raven and snow existed. The snow gathered on Raven's wings, and some of it clumped together into a small snowball. Becoming playful, Raven batted the snowball around and rolled it through the air. It gathered more snowflakes, growing larger and larger. Soon the snowball became so large that Raven could stand on it. The story continues with Raven creating all life, the sun and stars, the moon, the planets, etc., but everything originates with this giant snowball and all life arises from the snow.

Winter Raven (Ukiuq Tulugaq) metaphorically connects this story with the seasonal approach of winter. Winter, covering and equalizing all things under a blanket of snow, becomes a symbol for renewal and genesis. The frozen white of winter arrests life, temporarily immobilizing and purifying the earth.
The dramatic form of Winter Raven traces a seasonal change from fall into winter. This linear trajectory supports a nonlinear narrative, as if the listener encounters stories and dreams along the journey. The multi-movement structure also utilizes widely divergent media such as instrumental ensemble, multichannel computer sound, video, interactive media, dance, masked theater and voice. Each act centralizes a distinct state of being, addressing human / environmental dialectics. Primarily, Winter Raven, turns to the natural world for drama, with natural forces such as sun, wind and ice taking on dramatic musical personas. The anthropomorphism of ecology ultimately speaks to a value system deeply embedded in traditional Alaskan culture, a way of cohabitating with nature.
Act I takes place before winter. It is fall. The family prepares wood, leaves fall from trees, and abundant sunlight evokes the fading bounty of summer.

Act II accounts the transformation into winter. The stark northern landscape presented in Kunikluk backgrounds the juxtaposition of the spirit/flesh and the industry/voice in the Speaking Flesh and Industrial Garden/Lost Voices movements. The human drama of spirit and technology suddenly broken, everything freezes in a single stroke with the coming of ice (Siku Unipkaaq).

In Act III it snows. The wind blows, leaving impressions in the snow. The light changes and shadows emerge. The animals seek shelter leaving their fading tracks, another imprint. While this act predominantly moves toward the still place of winter, it also addresses notions of memory and cycle. The use of wind recalls Act I. Raven appears, invoking the memory of the family preparing wood for the winter with the use of wireless radio transmitters and portable receivers scattered in the hall. As snow falls on the stage, the music is full of connections to the past. It speaks to the continuation and cohabitation of humanity and nature. While the stillness and coolness of the music evokes a frozen emptiness, it also latently anticipates the possibility of resurrection, ideas that give hope for the future.

Each act contains three distinct movement types: 1) a chamber music piece with video, 2) a “story” (unipkaaq) involving music, dance and interactive video for which special masks were constructed, and 3) a piece involving some aspect of the human voice or body such as a wood cutter humming (Family), body percussion (Speaking Flesh), layers of spoken texts and construction (Lost Voices), and the final Ukiuq Tulugaq movement in which Raven appears. When Raven does finally arrive, at the very end of the piece, it is in a tripart appearance: the voice of Raven played by an electric violin triggering recorded raven calls, the memory of Raven invoked by the masked dancer using an FM radio transceiver playing back movement 1, and the spirit of Raven sung by the soprano voice.

Instrumentation

VOICE in "Ukiuq Tulugaq"
FLUTE/PICCOLO in "Kunikluk" and "Snowprints"
CLARINET/BASS CLARINET in "Kunikluk"
ALTO SAX in "Tingnikvik"
VIOLIN in ""Kunikluk"
VIOLA in "Tingnikvik"
CELLO in "Kunikluk" and "Snowprints"
PIANO in "Family", "Tingnikvik", "Kunikluk" and "Snowprints"
PERCUSSION SOLO in "Kunikluk", "Speaking Flesh" and lead part in "Anugi Unipkaaq"
PERCUSSION QUARTET (inclusive of percussion solo part) in "Siknik Unipkaaq" "Siku Unipkaaq", and "Anugi Unipkaaq"