Ideas - Listen to the sound of metal in musical form by 8 composers

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Eight composers, five instruments, and a world of metal. IDEAS explores a project by the University of British Columbia called The Heavy Metal Suite that conveys the challenges and opportunities of the mining industry, through music. Each composer draws inspiration from their country’s mineral resources in their original pieces. *This episode originally aired on May 28, 2024.

Did you know that it was once illegal to shop on Sundays? That's true for when I was born. I remember this, and I'm not that old. I'm not, okay? Leave me alone. Anyway, I'm Phelan Johnson, and I host See You in Court, a new podcast about the cases that changed Canada and the ordinary people who drove that change. From the drugstore owner who defied the Lord's Day, to the migma man who defended his treaty right to fish, to the gay teacher who got fired and fought back. Find and follow, see you in court, wherever you get your. Podcasts. This is a CBC podcast. Welcome to Ideas.

I'm Nala Ayyed. It's a packed house at the Vogue Theater in Vancouver. Are we good to try out some reverb? And a group called Axiom Brass is warming up. The musicians are about to play an experiment.

Can five brass instruments and eight composers convey the complexity of metal? So imagine how sand becomes silicon becomes computer chips, right? So I wanted to play with that. Zinc is a very important component in all brass instrument. So that really gives me a lot of conductivity. Music flows.

You know, there's this amazing ability for it to change shape and sound can be a lot like that. And so for me, it was a really easy connection to make. The project started at the University of British Columbia. It's an attempt to describe the conflicts, contradictions, and opportunities of mining, metals around the world through music. The goal?

To learn about the future of mining in a world with a radically changing climate. I knew that we weren't going to get far if we just sat down with people face to face and said, what do you think about mining? As cars turn electric, energy grids go renewable, and industries adapt, the world will need a lot of metal. In the past, mining has caused catastrophes and conflict, so the future will rely on a delicate balance of stewardship, technology, and collaboration. Humanity has an unrivaled capacity for both destruction, but also creativity and imagination. Each composer wrote a piece of music about a mineral mind in their process.

part of the world, like platinum from South Africa, zinc from China, and silver from Mexico. We bring you the heavy metals suite. My name is Philippe Tortel. I'm a professor and head of the Department of Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia. I'm also one of the founding members of the UBC Future Minerals Initiative, which is a group of scholars from across the university, working with indigenous leaders and industry leaders to perhaps reimagine the future of the mineral resource sector. Philippe is the main organizer of this project, and I spoke with him about what he hopes to achieve with this concert. The central issue is around the invisibility of these

resources and the fact that we take them for granted. Unless you live in a mining impacted community, chances are you have no understanding of what mining looks like, feels like, smells like even. And what we were trying to do is to make that invisible slightly more visible, to really allow people to understand that these metals and minerals that are embedded in their cars and their devices and their bodies really have a long chain of consequences all the way behind them. that start from the moment that anyone's identified their signature in the ground, all the way down to some sort of final product. So how did you get to, from that to music?

So the music was pretty important to me from the very beginning. I had done a number of projects previously where we'd used music to convey complex ideas. One of the early ones was called the Ice Corps Walk. In your left ear, you'll hear a musical representation of the temperature record for ice core site in central Antarctica. In your right ear, you'll hear the changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations. And it was the notion that music and the creative and performing arts provide a way of opening conversation that is a little bit sneaky sometimes, a little bit

clever, and it allows people to let their guard down in a way that makes them a little more open, a little bit more receptive to new kinds of ways of thinking. So I had done these kinds of projects and I knew that we weren't going to get far if we just sat down with people face to face and said, what do you think about mining? Either people don't think about it or if they do, almost certainly they'll have very, very strong opinions and often negative opinions. And so that already sets up a very confrontational kind of conversation. If you take it from the side and you just say, well, let's not necessarily talk about this explicitly. Let's open a space for a new kind conversation. Let's present these ideas in maybe a slightly whimsical way that just creates a bit

of space where maybe not so much space existed before. So the music was pretty important. And the idea of a suite, a heavy metal suite that would involve composers around the world was something that I'd been carrying around for probably three or four years at this point. Tonight, Nala will be our guide on a global tour through Earth's mineral resources. I had the pleasure of introducing each piece of music. Now please welcome me in joining Nala to the stage. The music we're about to hear is full. filled with contradiction, tension, and beauty.

And that is the story of metal. We're all going to go on an international journey together, but we are going to start, fittingly, here in Canada. And we begin not with heavy metal, but with water. On a global scale, mining uses trillions of liters of water each year. It is used in all forms of mining and processing, from extracting lithium from brine pools to floating and separating metal ores

and panning for gold in streams. Tea Patrick Carabre is a Métis composer from Vancouver. Here's what Carabre says. I was inspired by the many forms that water can take as well as its seemingly infinite flexibility. Water can be soft yet powerful. It can move slowly and quickly, flowing, rushing, or falling, lightly or with incredible power.

And then, You know, I mean, I'm going to be a lot of it. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be, I'm going to be. I don't know.

I'm going to be, I'm going to be. I'm going to be, I'm going to be, I'm going to be. I'm going to be. And I'm, I don't know what I'm going to be able to be.

I'm going to be. I don't know. I don't know. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. So, and I'm gonna

be a bit of the yeah, but the the time, and a man, and but that,

but, but the, a bit of the a bit of the, but I'm, but the, Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh. You know, I mean, And then, and then, you know,

and the people And we're going to be the same. And then, you know, and the... Oh. And...

And I'm going to be able to be. The name of that music was The name of that music was DeLoe, the Mischiff word for water. T. Patrick Carabray. It was really fantastic to finally hear it all come together in the actual performance because it's all been bits and pieces up to this point. I wonder when you thought about the relationship between water and music, where you began?

Like, how would you even begin to translate the idea of water into notes and music? Well, it's a kind of longer-term project for me. So maybe, yeah, probably about eight years ago, I had a commission for Canada 150. So I had a commission for a festival, and I decided that as part of that, and as an indigenous person, trying to make some kind of statement

in the context of Canada 150, that I needed to broaden the scope. So being in Manitoba, I looked back, and when I was a kid, Minnesota had 10,000 lakes on their license plate. So Manitoba immediately changed theirs to say 100,000 lakes, because we have 100,000 lakes. And so I called this piece 100,000 lakes. And the idea was to give my audience the opportunity to consider Manitoba in the context of prehistory.

So how did those 100,000 lakes happen? So we had glaciation, we had the melting of the glacier. You know, at one point, Winnipeg was, you know, hundreds of feet underwater. It's the bottom of an ocean. And so really just going like, okay, yes, we're celebrating Canada 150, but it's in the context of a geology and a geography that's evolved over millions of years and the context of, you know, people being here, long before you can even imagine

and that that culture and that history needs to be somehow positioned. The life of water is so important to the people who have lived on those territories for so long and it's been so difficult because I used to work a lot in northern Manitoba with university courses on First Nations and many of those First Nations have been moved from their traditional territories because of hydrodams.

And so the displacement and all, you know, people need to think about that stuff. And water can help us because who doesn't love water unless you're being flooded? You know what I mean? So it's one of those things where I think for me it's, and then when I came out here, I was asked to write a piece on the water protocols of the First Nations here. And so that gave me another opportunity to connect with particularly the water carriers here who are women, you know, and to hear their stories and hear about the rituals and the ceremony and all of those things and to use music to help, because music flows, you know, there's this amazing ability for it to change shape and move fast, move slow, do all of those things that water does. So sound can be a lot like that. and so for me, it was a really easy connection to make.

The next metal is actually here with us on stage. Zinc, along with copper, is an essential component in brass. That means it's one of two metals tonight that you'll actually be able to. able to hear resonating and vibrating. Composer Yao Chen wanted to focus on the dual nature of zinc. He says, zinc is brittle at room temperature, but soft and malleable when heated. Although pure zinc is hyper-reactive with other metals, it can also be used to protect them from corrosion, forming sacrificial coatings. The duality of the metal, brittle and soft, reactive and protective, is musically reflected as somber moments interspersed with flashes of vivid interaction.

The piece takes inspiration from a Chinese folk melody called A Little River Flowing. Along with symbolizing the water used in mining, Yao says the melody originates from Yunnan province in southwest China, which has the country's largest lead and zinc reserves. The music is cyclical. opening and closing with a solo trombone. The speed and intensity of the music gradually increases and decrease in an auditory parallel of chemical reactions.

At the end of the movement, the activity slackens and the instrumental lines thin out until only one remains. This is a metaphor for surplus and scarcity and a call to action for global environmental stewardship. This is zinc. And... ...and... ...their...

...and... ...and... ...and... I'm going to be the one of the I'm going to I'm going And...

...and... ...and... ...and... ...a... I'm going to be a bit of a lot of I'm going to be. I'm going to

be the a a mrs. I'm I'm going to be able to be. I'm just so. We're going to be able to be. I'm going to be.

I'm going to be able to be. And so, Oh, Omeh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. And so. And I'm going to be able to, and then. Oh, oh, oh, and then.

Thank you. I don't know I'm a lot of I'm a lot of I'm a Aeneck I'm a Aeneck

That was zinc from composer Yao Chen. Thank you, yes. That was Zink from composer Yao Chen. The folk melody from Yunnan that I mentioned on stage, little river flowing sounds like this. So very little little.

It sounds like a river flowing. Yeah, yeah, it's basically because this is kind of a cascading and going flowing downward. Just a quick thing about Yunnan, it's not just a place where there are zinc mines, but it's also a place where zinc is recycled. Right.

How did that kind of cyclical nature of the metals industry and form you're thinking about this music? Yeah. Well, my music is also cyclical too, right? I mean, in terms of how I use these materials. For example, this folk song is recycled in my piece. Yeah, but it's transformed and transfigured. and in my own personal, unique way of using it.

So then there's so many recycling and this way of presenting music. I'm coming from this classic music training and all the ideas, all the compositional tools are coming from the past, from the ancestors. So I try to combine all these things. So it's recycling. The new needs coming. new needs coming from this recycling process.

You're listening to ideas and to an episode called the Heavy Metal's Suite. We're a podcast and a broadcast heard on CBC Radio One in Canada, on US Public Radio, across North America on Sirius XM, in Australia, on ABC Radio National, and around the world at cBC.ca.ca slash ideas. Find us on the CBC Listen app and wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nala Ayyed. If you want to hear daily news, that doesn't hurt your soul and might even be good for your soul, Check out As It Happens. I'm Chris Howden. And I'm Neil Kokesal. Every day we reach people at the center of the most extraordinary stories,

like the doctor who restored a patient's eyesight with a tooth. Or a musician in an orchestra that plays instruments made out of vegetables. Take the scenic route through the day's news with As It Happens, and you can find us wherever you get your podcasts. Particularly in the face of existential climate change, perhaps the greatest challenge we face is a need to both rapidly and also equitably move the transition towards renewable energies and at the same time to supply those mineral resources that are going to be critical in that transition. This is not the job only of academics or government leaders or

policymakers or industry, but it's the job of all of us collectively as a society. And it's for this reason that the Heavy Metal Suite Project was created to bring together people from across different segments of society to ignite a new conversation, to ignite creativity and inspiration to bring new ideas to bear in solving this collective challenge.

That's Philippe Tortell from UBC speaking to a sold-out crowd at the Vogue Theater in Vancouver. I spoke with four of the composers behind the heavy metals suite. But there was much more music. Lithium, silver, platinum, and gold. And right now, copper.

Valeria Valle, lives near the Atacama Desert in Chile. For inspiration, she records the natural sounds near her home. For example, here's what the Atacama sounds like at night. For her copper composition, she didn't have to go far to get natural sounds. There's a large copper mine in the desert mountains near her home. Can you talk about your experience in visiting a copper mine? Where I live on the mountain side, on the other side is the copper mine. So I went down to that other side, and I had to sign some permits to be able to record there.

I was so impressed by the machinery, the machines that move and all the people that are required to work these machines. It's so impressive how they extract this mineral, all the tunnels that are required. And, you know, one does not imagine that from those depths we can pull out such an important mineral. And it makes you think how man was able to discover that such a rock could become something so important. You know, things that things that are important as things as minerals. I felt abrumated. You know, I feel.

felt overwhelmed. It supersedes the imagination to be in a place so big, and this mine is not the biggest mine in Chile, thinking that this mine gives economic sustenance to the country, and it made me think of all the people that are required to reach this goal. What do you want people to walk away with once they've heard the peace? for me the most important is that the most important part is for them to reflect on what sustainable mining means that minerals are a part of life

but we have to learn how to be friends with these minerals and how to take care of the planet and also that music can transport and take people and give them this scientific knowledge the next piece comes from Chile, the world's largest producer of copper. It is called Kipros 29, 29 being the atomic number of copper. By the year 2035, just 10 years from now, global demand for copper is expected to double to 50 million metric tons per year. Transitioned to green technologies will, more than any other metal, rely on copper.

As of now, it's not clear where all of that copper will come from. Over the coming decade, the anticipated copper supply gap is 10 million metric tons per year. Composer Valeria Valé Martinez says, In composing Kipros 29, I wanted to sonically represent the different stages of copper extraction and processing. The piece consists of eight parts, exploration, extraction, crushing, grinding, flotation, smelting, electro-refining, and waste management. The intrinsic chemical properties of copper are also represented in the movement. Kipros 29 reflects the particular geography and climate of Chile's northern mining regions, a bone-dry landscape of

barren rocks shaped by sun and wind. The interplay of climate and geology is reflected in the instrumental sounds of the brass quintet, which range from light and airy to grounded and solid. This provides a metaphor for the challenges ahead as we seek new mineral resources to harvest energy from the sun and wind. Here is Kipro's 29. I'm going to And so on the end of it. And...

...and... ...their... ...and... ...the... ...the... I don't know what I'm going to be it. I'm going to be. I'm going to be.

I'm going to be. I'm going to be. And I'm going to I'm going I'm Oh, and I'm gonna'n't know. And...

...andah... ...and... ...and... ...and... ...and... ...and... ...and... ...a...

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, and . . . .

Oh, and I'm Oh, Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh, So, Thank you. Copper is one of those elements that's probably hardest to get around in the green energy transition. Philippe Tortell, UBC.

Copper is used in wiring in absolutely staggering quantities. And until there's some fundamental breakthrough in quantum physics, we're still going to need copper to conduct electricity. And it is also clear that we really don't know where that extra copper is going to come from. So global resource economists talk about a copper supply gap, which is on the order of, again, billions of tons. And I'm told, if I recall the statistic correctly, the amount of copper that we're missing is equivalent to the amount of copper that's needed to meet the Paris, the 2015 Paris climate agreements. So that's a pretty big gaping hole. Now, there are other elements that are probably easier to substitute or have different resource demand equations. Lithium, for example, is a really good example.

Lithium is used in rechargeal batteries, and particularly these days in electric vehicles. A Tesla would have 50 to 60 kilograms of lithium in the battery. There's actually more than enough lithium on Earth to supply all of our demands for many, many, many years. The problem there is not a problem of supply. It's a problem of geopolitics, environmental issues, and so on. Whereas copper is just a matter of where is this stuff. Now, onto the flip side of what the tradeoffs are around. some of these solutions, I think that's also not really clear because we haven't really thought

about doing until pretty recently totally new kinds of mining. A lot of the mining is still based on crushing, grinding, flotation. A lot of the techniques are still techniques that have existed for decades, if not more. Is there work being done on trying to figure out different ways? There is a lot of work. For example, there's a lot of people who are drawing inspirations from nature, particularly in the microbial world in the era of molecular biology and metagenomics. We're learning that microbial signatures

in the rocks provide a very efficient way to localize mineral resources, essentially pinpointing the search for this proverbial needle in a haystack. Microbes are also seeing to be useful in terms of waste management dealing with this problem I mentioned before about acid mine waste.

And so that's a really good example. There's economic incentives and economic innovation in terms of shaking up the business model that's been traditionally based on very, very large multinational corporations that essentially control all elements and breaking that model apart into many, many distributed small-scale actors that can be based in communities, for example, and that allows for much more innovation,

much more rapid deployment of technology. The way it works now, the capital investment for a mine is so large that there's a business plan that's set. And once that's set in stone, it's not particularly nimble. And it's maybe not empathetic to the local concerns. Yeah. I mean, I think that's changing.

I think the mining industry is recognizing that they need to be proactive and they need to take a leadership in transforming this industry. We talk sometimes about water and how it could maybe even start conflict in the world. I wonder what your thoughts are about where the shortages and the problems with these elements might lead us politically in the world. Right. Yeah. That's a interesting and a complicated.

question. But there are certain minerals for which there is a preponderance of supply, by that I mean more than 90 percent, localized into a certain country. So 90 percent of the world's cobalt, I believe, which is used in battery, comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. And there's also the processing. So it's not just where the metal comes from, but which companies are processing those metals to make them available for final products. And a lot of what we've seen in the United States with the Inflation Reduction Act and all of this green energy technology and the startup of processing activity actually in Canada as well is really a response to a trend towards a very, very strong concentration

of either extraction or processing capabilities in countries that presumably one might say could hold the world hostage for a supply of these really critical minerals. Just looking back at this very short conversation and the list of challenges that you have raised and have been raised by this whole event, I wonder just if you could make a general statement as to how optimistic or not you are about us finding solutions to some of these really complicated challenges ahead.

Well, I'm an optimist by nature, and I think humanity has an unrivaled capacity for both destruction, but also creativity and imagination. It seems that we need to let our backs get pushed pretty far up against the wall before we react. I do think that there is going to be a lot of disruption. I think there are going to be a lot of people who are negatively impacted. So that is not a good news story. But I do also think that at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, when there are no other alternatives,

we will be creative enough and cooperative enough ultimately to find some sort of a path forward. Our final piece of music comes from a place where very little mining has. happens at all. Perhaps the only thing that's mine there is Bitcoin. Chris Sheaf is an American composer from California, and the element in question is silicon. After oxygen, silicon is the second most abundant element on earth. It is in rocks and sand and gravel. But pure elemental silicon is much rarer in nature. The flat and shiny silicon wafers use from electronic components are only a recent human invention. They're made by refining silica sand into pure blocks,

which are then sliced into sheets about the thickness of a fingernail. Over the past half century, these thin silicon wafers and their embedded circuits have led to the growth of digital technologies around the world. Chaf says, My home near the San Francisco Bay in northern California is in Silicon Valley, known worldwide for its deposits of cash rather than sand and synonymous with techno investment. The music was inspired by the contrasting properties of silicon containing sand and pure silicon. Computer simulation was used to describe the chaotic distribution of sand grains

as compared to the highly ordered nature of pure silicon crystals. The movement of particles through space and time was mapped musically into dynamic melodies, rhythms, and articulations. If Silicon Valley itself has a form to draw upon, it should include stark juxtapositions in a turbulent history. Unlike the smooth, shiny surface of a silicon wafer, the truth underneath is bumpy and wrinkled, filled with interesting textures of an indigenous world that has largely been undone, and glossed over. The Silicon theme represents my musical expression of the Valley's millennia, its turbulent recent centuries,

its high-speed present, and even some whispers of its possible future. This is Silicon. I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to be able to be. I'm a lot of I'm

a bit of a bit of I'm a bit of my name the and I'm a

I'm and I'm I'm and a bit of a I'm I'm not you know,

and the and I'm and I'm and my

and I'm and I'm I don't know. And so, you know, and

the I'm I don't know I'm going to be able to I'm going to be I'm going to I'm going to I'm going

I'm I'm going I'm I'm I don't know. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be, I'm going to be.

And so, I'm going to be. I don't know. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be. Oh, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be.

I'm going to be. Oh, I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. Oh, and I'm Oh.

Oh. And I don't know. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. were listening to the heavy metals suite. Special thanks to Axiom Brass, Tolten Elder, Alan Edzerza, and all of the composers. And to Philippe Tartel, who organized the event.

Thank you as well to Graham Tucson, sound mixer at the Vogue Theater in Vancouver. And to Anna Park, who provided Spanish translation. There is a book, heavy metal, featuring reflections by the composers, and in-depth analysis of the issues facing the mining industry around the world. We have a link to a free download on our website, CBC.ca.ca.

Ideas is a podcast and a broadcast. If you like the episode you just heard, check out our vast archive, where you can find more than 300 of our past episodes. This episode was produced by Matthew Laysen Ryder. Technical producer Danielle Duvau. Our web producer is Lisa Ayuso. Acting senior producer Lisa Godfrey.

Greg Kelly is the executive producer of ideas. And I'm Nala Ayyad. So, you know, I'm going to be able to be. And I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca.coms.