Tar Sands Songbook

New England Conservatory's Intercultural Institute and The NEC 2050 Forum present Tanya Kalmanovitch’s Tar Sands Songbook, a documentary performance about music, memory and oil.

An illuminating work of documentary theater, The Tar Sands Songbook asks us to reconsider our unseen relationships with oil. Creator Tanya Kalmanovitch knows these relationships all too well. Born in Fort McMurray, Canada, near the site of the Athabasca Oil Sands, the world’s largest bitumen reservoir, she made her decision to become a musician as a teenager because “it had nothing to do with oil.” Fort McMurray has since become a flashpoint of international clashes over energy, the environment, and the economy.

Kalmanovitch's polyphonic piece weaves together a chorus of clashing voices with an original, improvised score. The words of indigenous activists, engineers, heavy equipment operators, elders, oil patch workers, scientists, and those of her own family fuel discussions of our past and the powerful forces that shape our future.

This performance will be followed by a discussion with the audience.

Watch the trailer: