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Below are video and audio clips of the Tempest Flute Ensemble performance of the Four Elements, with conductor Véronique Lacroix and guest cellist Mariève Bock, May 23, 2013, Vancouver.

Edward Top: AS8: Earthrise

The composition AS8 Earthrise is inspired by Earth as viewed from space. The title is derived from a NASA photo, coded AS8-14-2383, taken by astronauts from the Apollo-8 mission in 1968. As they looked at the ‘arthrise’ from their spacecraft, they communicated with Earth via radio. These communications included, for example, fragments from the Book of Genesis from the Bible, which they read out loud to people on Earth: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” This represents common themes in [Top’s] music such as chaos desolation, darkness, and death, or lifelessness in this case. — From www.edwardtop.com

Emily Hall: Qui a vu le vent?

“His ears were filled with the sound of the wind, singing fierce and lost and lonely, rising and rising again, shearing high and higher still, singing vibrance in a void, forever and forever wild.” — W.O. Mitchell, Who Has Seen the Wind, 1947.

On the rural high plains of Wyoming, I read Mitchell’s famous novel “Who Has Seen the  Wind,” a boy’s young life on the Saskatchewan prairies. These two experiences interconnected to form the stimulus for this music inspired by air, wind, space, colour, and texture. — Emily Hall

Jocelyn Morlock: Salamander

The salamander has long been associated with elemental fire. Among the more bizarre yet  visually appropriate Medieval portrayals of salamanders are “a satyr-like creature in a circular wooden tub,” “a winged dog,” and “a small bird in flames.” In writing Salamander, it was my intent to make an aural depiction of the wild activity and fanciful moods of this mythical amphibian, and of the element Fire itself as embodied in a living organism. — Jocelyn Morlock

Éric Champagne: Rivières et marées

Rivières et marées is inspired by British Land Art artist Andy Goldsworthy whom I  discovered in Thomas Riedelsheimer’s documentary Rivers and Tides (which is the source  of the piece’s title). I wanted to reproduce the atmosphere in which the artist creates his works while applying some techniques and typical forms of his work in my music. The arch form in particular is at the heart of the musical structure and the spatial concept. — Éric Champagne