News Release

Photos: For photos of Antarctica by Brooks de Wetter-Smith, click on
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Flutist, professor to share Antarctica through photos, music

CHAPEL HILL – Antarctica, with its wild, pristine, vast expanse of ice, has been a calling for flutist Brooks de Wetter-Smith for nearly 50 years.

The music professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill finally realized his dream last December, when he boarded a National Geographic ship to the southernmost continent on Earth. His mission: to capture the spectacular beauty of Antarctica in music, sound and pictures.

The public will get a taste of de Wetter-Smith’s journey on June 30 at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, where he will improvise on flute, accompanying a high-definition slideshow of about 100 of his photos of Antarctica. Audiences also will hear his recordings of the sounds of ice, wind and penguins.  

The free program, “Southern Ice,” will be at 11:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. in the museum, at 11 West Jones St. It will be part of the “Wild Music” exhibit at the museum June 30-Sept. 16. The interactive, traveling exhibit explores the biological origins of music, where crickets chirp and birds sing. For information on exhibit ticket prices, call (919) 733-7450, ext. 305. Admission to the museum is free.

De Wetter-Smith’s program will preview a larger multimedia project, “Iceblink.” As part of that project, Allen Anderson, Ph.D., associate professor and head of the UNC music department’s composition area, is writing new music inspired by de Wetter-Smith’s ice images.

The piece will be designed for a small chamber group and premiere in a performance similar to “Southern Ice” at the Raleigh museum next spring. De Wetter-Smith, D.M.A., will be the flutist in the group as 300 to 400 of his Antarctica photos – out of 4,500 in his digital library – are shown. The performance will also feature narration and song.

It all begs the question: Why this passion for the coldest and windiest continent?

“I’m fascinated with remote, challenging places,” said de Wetter-Smith, the James Gordon Hanes Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences, a faculty member for 30 years. “I’ve been above (Mount) Everest Base Camp. I’ve trekked in the Andes. I’ve spent time in the deserts of Egypt, Jordan and Syria and the mountains of Lebanon. Antarctica is a wilderness that is unspoiled. Where else in the world can we go and say, ‘No one has been up that mountain before?’ The deserts have been traversed for centuries, the Andes have been explored for many years, but Antarctica is absolutely pure.”

And so de Wetter-Smith, a former president of the National Flute Association, traverses between his adventures in hiking garb and boots and his day job, for which he dons a tux more often than most. He has performed in 20 nations and nearly all 50 states, on television and radio broadcasts and on recordings for prominent labels.

De Wetter-Smith’s 12-day Antarctica trip began in Ushuaia, Argentina, at the southern tip of South America. There, he boarded a ship with scientists, researchers and others to travel around Cape Horn and cross the Drake Passage – among the roughest waters in the world – to Antarctica. It was a two-day journey each way.

In between, de Wetter-Smith spent eight days on the Antarctic peninsula, with time on glaciers, beaches, shipboard and kayak. He traveled during Antarctica’s austral summer, when temperatures were at their warmest – if a high of 34 degrees Fahrenheit can be considered warm.

“I had about 40 pounds of photographic gear with me, and I’d put my pack on the ice and sit there for 30 minutes,” said de Wetter Smith. “Without exception, a penguin would come up and peck my backpack, or a seal would put his nose close to me. The animals haven’t learned to fear man as predator.”

De Wetter-Smith caught the photography bug from his grandfather – the first curator of photography for the Brooklyn Museum – and from Ansel Adams, whom he and his grandfather both knew.

This fall, de Wetter Smith will work on “Iceblink” through a UNC Institute for the Arts and Humanities fellowship. He and Anderson will continue their collaboration, which actually began in October 2005.

“We spent a good deal of time prior to the trip discussing the kinds of shots Allen would like to see,” de Wetter-Smith said. “We wanted ice and rock textures, because Allen works with textures in his music. But we never thought before I went down there about the variety in colors – incredibly intense pinks and deep reds and blues and greens and oranges, and those colors also have a musical counterpart.”

De Wetter-Smith said he wants people to care about Antarctica, to feel a connection with the icy continent.

“Antarctica isn’t just a white blob at the bottom of a map or globe,” he said. “It’s very real, it’s very beautiful, and it’s very important to our future. I hope the audience will take away a greater commitment to its preservation.”

The Antarctica project is supported by the following UNC units: the College of Arts and Sciences, the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, the music department and the University Research Council. Outside sponsors include the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions, the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild, the N.C. Arts Council, Southeastern Camera in Carrboro and Canon USA.
 
N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences’ Web site: http://www.naturalsciences.org 

Note: De Wetter-Smith holds the copyright on his photos. He grants permission for use of photos at the link above. Contact him for additional permissions and downloadable images. They can be viewed at http://associated-arts.com/index.html. De Wetter-Smith can be reached at (919) 967-0829 and brooks@email.unc.edu. For more on his career in music, visit http://www.unc.edu/~brooks/.

College of Arts and Sciences contact: Dee Reid, (919) 843-6339, deereid@unc.edu
N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences contact: Jon Pishney, (919) 733-7450, ext. 304, jonathan.pishney@ncmail.net
News Services contact: LJ Toler, (919) 962-8589