Machado and UA's Fan Infuse Biosphere 2 Science With Music

Machado and UA's Fan Infuse Biosphere 2 Science With Music

By Lori StilesUniversity Communications
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Simone Gorete Machado, Biosphere 2 artist-in-residence
Simone Gorete Machado, Biosphere 2 artist-in-residence
Simone Gorete Machado and the UA's Scott Saleska collaborate in preparing a "Survival of the Sphere" program, which is sponsored by Biosphere 2.
Simone Gorete Machado and the UA's Scott Saleska collaborate in preparing a "Survival of the Sphere" program, which is sponsored by Biosphere 2.
Regents' Professor of music Paula Fan is passionate about bridging the gap between science and music.
Regents' Professor of music Paula Fan is passionate about bridging the gap between science and music.

Biosphere 2 is where science lives.

Biosphere 2 is also where science fuses with art and music, a melding that takes place as part of the B2 Institute Artist-in-Residence program.

"It's a very important program, because many people get immediately turned off when you say the word, ‘science,' " said Pierre Meystre, director of the B2 Institute. The institute conducts interdisciplinary programs that address emerging challenges of extreme growth and fragile environment at local, regional and global levels. "But when you say ‘art' or ‘music,' people get excited."

"Artists, musicians and scientists are all creative people who look at the world with different eyes," Meystre said. "The Artist-in-Residence program is important because it's another way to bring more people into the conversation about the challenges of extreme growth and fragile environment."

Classical pianist Simone Gorete Machado of the University of São Paulo became Biosphere 2's first musician-in-residence in January. Machado is an award-winning pianist who has performed widely throughout her native country, Brazil, as well as in the United States and Austria.

Machado won her first prestigious piano competition at age 15 and was later mentored by acclaimed pianist Roberto Bravo and internationally renowned composer Camargo Guarnieri.

After earning a master of music degree in piano performance and a graduate professional diploma from The Hartt School at the University of Hartford, Machado completed her doctorate of musical arts degree in piano performance at The University of Arizona, where she studied with UA Regents' Professor of music Paula Fan.

This year Machado is starting a program with her graduate students that offers a chance to learn to play piano to people of all ages who have the desire but no training. Machado raises scholarship money to support those of her students who want to teach music in the program.

"The idea to become Biosphere 2 musician-in-residence started with Paula," Machado said.

"For her doctoral work, Simone explored works by Brazilian composers that reflected indigenous dance," Fan said. "She has a really great mastery of works by many famous Brazilian composers, and I figured that this could be a jumping-off point  in exploring the importance of the Amazon rain forest and deforestation."

Machado was soon collaborating with UA ecologist Scott Saleska, who directs Amazon-PIRE, or Partnership for International Research and Education, a National Science Foundation-funded program that joins North and South American scientists in studying the future of Amazon forests in the face of changing climate.

Machado and Saleska presented two programs, one at Biosphere 2 and another on main campus, that combined narrative, visual imagery and music in explaining risks posed by climate change and deforestation in the Amazon, as well as the possibilities for saving one of the most beautiful and ecologically important rain forests on the planet.

"I'm hoping that I can help people realize the importance of what they do in everyday life, when it comes to the environment," Machado said. "I don't think many people are really aware of the little things they do and how important those things are, how fragile humans are, and how they depend on the planet to survive.

"I also try to show people a little more about Brazilian music, and how we can perform it in a way that sounds Brazilian. It takes more than playing the notes right and the rhythm right for music to sound Brazilian."

"It is very exciting for me, as a scientist, to collaborate with a musician to create new ways to more deeply appreciate the beauty and value of the forest for our world," Saleska said. "It is one of the great benefits of a university to society, to be a place where the liberal arts and sciences can find a common home and purpose."

Fan, whose father is UA physics professor emeritus C.Y. Fan, helped initiate and guides the B2 Institute Artist-in-Residence program. A pianist with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Fan is the first Regents' Professor from the College of Fine Arts.

Fan became a committed Earthwatch volunteer after touring the Amazon in 2000, and since has spent her summers as a volunteer on Earthwatch ecological or archaeological projects in China, Africa, Australia, the Galapagos Islands, England, Florida and Mexico.

"Some view big science as important and music as a frill, but I believe that science and music are complementary," Fan said, adding that she is passionate about bridging the gap between the scientific and musical worlds. "Both music and science use the creative process and imagination to understand, interpret and explore the world.

"When Pierre took me through Biosphere 2, I realized there was an incredible opportunity to do more than make Biosphere 2 just another concert hall," Fan said. "It is a place, a situation where you can dream, and come up with things that for the run-of-the-mill musician might be a little mad. But why not? The parallel is that there are an awfully lot of recognized scientists now who were once thought to be quite mad."

Artists-in-residence are invited to stay at Casita Village, Biosphere 2's inexpensive student housing, and meet Biosphere 2 visitors while working on their projects.

"The program has really taken off, especially with photographers," Meystre said. "We make sure to select artists who are serious about this – we see their resumes, make sure they have a track record and want to work with scientists."

Renowned photographers Judy Natal of Columbia College, Chicago, and Dana Fritz of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are working on Biosphere 2 projects.

"It brings together all of these different people, which is really the whole idea," Meystre said. "The whole idea of Biosphere 2 from the beginning was to get rid of all the little boxes that people fit themselves into. It's working well."

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