Wilderness Suite
Ruby Fulton (1981)
Wilderness Suite (2019-2026)
When it became the wildernessPilots, planes, airstripsCATWe as humansFrom point a to point bWolf SongJust letting fires burnWatching it come backYour attention expands
WILDERNESS SUITE CREDITSComposer: Ruby Fultonhttps://www.rubyfulton.com/Composer and musician Ruby Fulton (b. 1981) writes music which invites listeners to explore non-musical ideas through sound. Her musical portfolio includes explorations of mental illness, Buddhism, philosophy, psychedelic research, addiction, and chess strategy; and profiles of iconic popular figures like the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and musicians Syd Barrett and Whitney Houston. She has collaborated on interdisciplinary projects with thinkers and makers in the sciences and literary, movement and visual arts.Fulton is a multi-instrumentalist, performing on and writing for violin, flugelhorn, and keys. Much of her work falls into the category of concert music, written for ensembles ranging from duos and trios to full orchestras, choirs, and wind ensembles. Fulton also writes music that she performs herself, using loops and samples to become a one-person orchestra. Whatever musical genre or instruments Fulton chooses, her music reflects the rhythms and pulses of daily life, and the world around her. Her music has been performed by the Boulder Philharmonic, the Cabrillo Festival Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Holland Symfonia, Volti, and Newspeak; and programmed on the Bang on a Can Marathon, the Gaudeamus New Music Festival, and the SONiC Festival. Fulton is a founding member of the experimental vocal collective Rhymes With Opera, a 5-piece vocal/composer ensemble based in New York City.She teaches music at the College of Southern Maryland. She holds a doctorate from the Peabody Conservatory of Music, with additional degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Boston University. She has taught undergraduate and graduate composition and music theory at the Shenandoah Conservatory, the Peabody Conservatory, Johns Hopkins University, and Towson University.Geographers: Teresa Cavazos CohnTeresa Cavazos Cohn is an Associate Professor in the University of New Hampshire’s Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, a climate change fellow at the Harvard Divinity School, and a co-founder of the Confluence Lab, which brings together scholars in the humanities and sciences with community members to engage in environmental issues in rural communities. Dr. Cohn is a human geographer who specializes in hydrosocial relations with emphasis on Tribes of the Western United States, human dimensions of fire, and science communication and the environment. Her research and outreach projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation, NASA, and Milkweed Press.Micaela PetriniMicaela Petrini is a natural resource professional with a nonprofit land trust. Her work focuses on climate resiliency, land conservation, and habitat enhancement, and facilitates opportunities for communities to develop meaningful connections to the protected landscapes of the region they call home. She manages a portfolio of two community forests and over 4,000 acres of protected habitat in west Puget Sound, Washington. Her other passions include serving as a board member of a nonprofit roller derby league, pursuing art and creativity, and investing in her local community. Micaela attended University of Idaho's McCall Outdoor Science School graduate program, earning her Masters of Science in Natural Resources in 2020.Performers: icarus Quartet Max Hammond and Larry Weng, piano Matt Keown and Jeff Stern, percussion https://icarusquartet.org/Like the mythological figure from which it draws its name, the half piano/half percussion icarus Quartet dares to fly towards the sun, aspiring to new heights of artistry. Following their Carnegie Hall debut, composer Paul Lansky simply remarked, “This is music making of the highest order.” The Wall Street Journal praised icarus Quartet’s 2022 album, BIG THINGS, for the group’s “virtuosity, precision and unflagging energy,” applauding the release as “a beautifully immersive recording… an impressive calling card.”Winner of the 2019 Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition, icarus Quartet has given new life to old masterpieces as well as the future of their instrumentation. The Quartet was chosen as Chamber Music Northwest’s 2020 Protégé Project Ensemble and was subsequently the first ensemble to hold the Klinger ElectroAcoustic Residency at Bowling Green State University. Past engagements include appearances at the Kennedy Center’s REACH, the Vienna Summer Music Festival, the Horowitz Piano Series, the Queens New Music Festival, the São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival, the Adalman Chamber Series, and at Princeton University for a Lansky tribute concert held in honor of the emeritus professor’s 75th birthday.icarus’ indie classical aesthetic blends the best of adventurous contemporary programming with an arena rock atmosphere. Their instrumental installations are flanked by jumbotron-esque projections of the pianists’ fingers flying up and down their keyboards, giving audiences truly immersive experiences where the visceral, communal energy of live performance doesn’t sacrifice the detail offered by video captures with an ideal view. And while the majority of iQ’s sounds are produced acoustically, albeit through occasionally unconventional means, their setups have increasingly featured synthesizers, drum trigger pads, and augmentative electronic audio samples. This inclusion of synthesized timbres have enabled unique infusions of disparate musical genres, including looped and reprocessed audio layerings typifying DJ mixes as well as dance styles like merengue and EDM. Their mainstream leanings are further injected into recital programs with the constant breaking of the fourth wall, as the musicians speak candidly from the stage to provide inside perspectives on the repertoire along with their personal relationships with the composers represented throughout their set list.Fostering the development of new works through commissioning and collaborating lies at the core of the group’s mission, inspiring partnerships with titans of the classical contemporary field, established artists of electronic and indie music scenes, as well as the two gifted student composer Scholars chosen each year for their iQ Tests program. In Fall 2024, icarus made their Secrest Artist Series debut with “Bartók Rebórn,” a program showcasing the Hungarian’s 1937 masterpiece, Sonata for two pianos and percussion, an arrangement of Witold Lutosławski’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini, and three commissioned Bartók companion works written expressly for the Quartet by Charles Ives Living Award recipient Martin Bresnick, Pacific Symphony composer-in-residence Viet Cuong, and Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Higdon. The Cultural Voice of North Carolina lauded icarus’ concert as a “performance about as perfect as one could ask for: superior musicality with nuance, and a commitment to music-making as expressive as possible.”The ensemble’s work often extends beyond the realm of music. In Spring 2025, icarus collaborated with the Peabody Institute’s NEXT Ensemble, conductor Juliano Aniceto, and the American Prison Writing Archive to present “Songs from the Inside,” a pairing of Luigi Dallapiccola’s Canti di prigionia (Songs of Imprisonment) with a commissioned companion work by Elijah Daniel Smith featuring poetry by incarcerated author Brian Fuller. And Wilderness Suite, an intermedia project combining icarus Quartet with the forces of composer Ruby Fulton, geographer Teresa Cavazos Cohn, and eight independent video artists, examines the unique “anti-development” of the 2.4 million-acre Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness site through still imagery, data, film, recorded interviews, natural sound samples, and live music. With generous support from the NEA, the University of Idaho’s Confluence Lab, and the Tri-M Foundation, the Suite will receive its full premiere in February 2026.Passionate about educating and engaging with the next generation of musicians, icarus Quartet thrives in school and university settings. They have given classes on chamber music, composition seminars on writing for their instruments, and discussions on entrepreneurship and nonprofit operations at institutions including Columbia State’s Schwob School of Music, the University of North Carolina’s School of the Arts, the Peabody Conservatory, Purdue University Fort Wayne, Colorado State University, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Bridgeport University, the University of Florida, the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, the University of Northern Iowa, Florida State University, Lebanon Valley College, the University of Central Florida, Wright State University, the University of Idaho’s Lionel Hampton School of Music, and the São Paulo State University, in addition to presentations for grade school and Pre-K students.Larry Weng, Max Hammond, Matt Keown, and Jeff Stern are all celebrated soloists in their own rights, and together they have found a special chemistry and inimitable joy playing chamber music. They are dedicated to the discovery, creation, and performance of new music, but what distinguishes their approach to contemporary music is a strong training and background in the classical genre. icarus Quartet is committed to performing new works with a studied and convincing interpretation that mirrors the validity of works with performance practices developed over centuries.Video Artists: Benjamin James (I. and III.) Margaret Rorison (II.)Margaret Rorison is filmmaker, projectionist, and educator from Baltimore, MD. Her work aims to support and preserve contemporary filmmakers and film culture. Her work incorporates 16mm film, alternative photographic processes, poetry, and sound to explore her interests in portraiture, memory, and landscape. Rorison received her BA from UMD, College Park in Creative Writing and Spanish Literature, and an MFA in Photographic & Electronic Media from MICA. She currently works at The Baltimore Museum of Art as a Digital Content Producer within the Marketing Department. Xuan (IV.) Rohan Pathare (V.)Rohan Pathare is a computer video artist and musician based in Baltimore, MD, whose work merges technical exploration with a DIY punk ethos. His practice centers on interactivity, emotional responsiveness, and chance operations, creating systems that explore mystery and mythologies of identity. Drawing from his background in experimental music and aesthetics of the digital world, Pathare builds environments where control and chaos coexist; where algorithmic processes meet human gesture. His work has been exhibited across interdisciplinary contexts, bridging performance, installation, and screen-based media. More of his visual art can be found at rowhawn.github.io, and his photography on Instagram @oh.i.died. Stephanie Barber (VI.)Stephanie Barber is a writer and artist who has created a poetic, conceptual and philosophical body of work in a variety of media, often literary/visual hybrids that dissolve boundaries between narrative, essay and dialectic. Her work considers the basic philosophical questions of human and non-human existence (its morbidity, profundity and banality) with play and humor. Barber’s films and videos have screened nationally and internationally in solo and group shows at MOMA, NY; The Tate Modern, London; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Paris Cinematheque; The Walker Art Center, MN; MOCA Los Angeles, The Wexner Center for Art, OH, among other galleries, museums and festivals.Her videos are distributed by Video Data Bank and her films can be found at Canyon Cinema. Publishing Genius Press published her books Night Moves and these here separated... in 2013 and 2010 respectively. CTRL+P published a collection of her haiku, Status Update Vol. 1 in 2019 and her full-length play Trial in the Woods was published by Plays Inverse in 2021 with a second pressing in 2022.Barber is currently Department Head of Film and Digital Cinema at Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, Pa. Sabrina Nichols (VII.)Sabrina Nichols is a multidisciplinary artist based in Rochester, NY. Her practice blends digital media and offbeat humor to explore the absurd, the uncanny, and the strangely familiar. She holds a BFA in 3D Digital Design from Rochester Institute of Technology.After graduating, Sabrina interned with [adult swim], where her interest in surreal and sketchy animation deepened. Later, she was an artist-in-residence at UUU Gallery, where she developed immersive works that merged video, performance, and physical installation. After that, her role as an animator and video editor at Beggars Group brought her sensibility to indie music visuals, helping craft content for groundbreaking and already prominent artists.In 2025, she embraced the title of "freelance absurdist monster," a nod to her ever-evolving identity as a creator of strange and playful visual worlds. She is currently the resident artist at Rochester Contemporary Art Center’s COMP studios for spring of 2026, building projection mapped sculptures and creating abstract animations. Sabrina’s work continues to challenge norms and delight viewers with its irreverent spirit and layered weirdness. Karen Yasinsky (VIII.)Karen Yasinsky is an artist and filmmaker. Her work has been shown in venues internationally including the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; PS1 Contemporary Art, NY; UCLA Hammer Museum, LA; the Wexner Center, Columbus, Museum Folkwang, Essen and Kunst Werke, Berlin. Her films and videos have been screened worldwide at venues and film festivals including the National Gallery of Art, DC, MoMA, NY, the New York Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. She’s a Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow of the American Academy in Berlin and the American Academy in Rome. She teaches at Johns Hopkins University in Film and Media Studies. Maiko Kikuchi (IX.)Maiko Kikuchi is a New York–based multidisciplinary artist known for creating surreal, handcrafted visual worlds that fuse performance, puppetry, collage, animation, sculpture, and painting. Her practice often begins with tactile, hand-drawn elements that are digitally animated, and she explores the blurred boundary between reality and imagination through whimsical, emotionally resonant narratives. Originally from Japan, she holds an MFA in Theater from Pratt Institute and has presented work at venues including The Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, HERE Arts Center, Japan Society, and La MaMa Experimental Theater. Kikuchi also creates puppet-driven performance pieces, collaborates widely, and makes work for stage, screen, and site-specific contexts, inviting audiences into “visible daydreams.”PROGRAM NOTESWilderness Suite transports us to a place frozen in time.In 1980, all human development across 2,361,767 acres of land in central Idaho was ceased, creating the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, the largest federally protected wilderness area in the contiguous United States. Now left untouched for 45 years, this landscape tells a unique story of “anti-development” that adds to its much longer history of human use and expulsion; the Nez Perce Tribe were forcibly removed starting in 1877 and the Shoshone Bannock (Sheepeater) Tribe were forcibly removed starting in 1879. The Suite features images taken before and after the legislation was introduced to protect the Frank Church Wilderness, set into motion by eight video artists, along with live music and pre-recorded electronics, to examine the impression of humankind on environments. This interdisciplinary collaboration unites scientists, filmmakers, and musicians, drawing from and shedding light on the stories of the place and some of the people associated with it. From the composer and video artists:“I first got involved with this project after joining the Confluence Lab at the University of Idaho, an interdisciplinary research lab that brings scholars in the arts, humanities, and sciences together with community members to engage in environmental issues impacting rural communities. The Lab’s first project I learned about was a rephotography study called ‘Human and Ecological Change in the Frank Church River of No Return,’ led by geographer Teresa Cavazos Cohn. I was inspired by Teresa’s work, and Wilderness Suite was born as an artistic counterpart to her geographical study. Rephotography is a technique used in many fields and disciplines as a way to examine change over time by comparing old photographs to current photographs taken in the same places. Research assistant Micaela Petrini collected old photos and hiked through the Big Creek Drainage to take their modern versions, while also recording interviews with various stakeholders in the area about their perceptions of change. These are the main source materials used in both the videos and the music of Wilderness Suite.”—Ruby FultonWhen it became the wilderness“The opening of the suite introduces the concept of protected wilderness and highlights the innate connection of humans to wilderness. The phrase ‘when it became the wilderness’ stands out to me as a perfect summary of how odd it is that humans needed to name something as what it already is, in order to leave it alone. I eventually leaned into this irony, using the excerpt as an anthem to set up the entire suite.”—Ruby Fulton“This was the first of two films that I worked on for the Wilderness Suite project. I was quite inspired by Micaela Petrini’s re-photography that provided all of the contemporary images that I could pair with the archival photos. I had just read Richard McGuire’s graphic novel Here that explores time and place by showing different moments in history, from the prehistoric to the future, all within the same physical space. I wanted to emulate that visual style, layering images from different eras on top of each other to create a meditation on the passage of time, memory, and the continuity of life in one spot.”—Benjamin JamesPilots, planes, airstrips“One of the strangest aspects of the Frank Church is the small planes that buzz overhead the otherwise quiet and still landscape. Although machinery in the area was outlawed when the legislation was passed, there was an exception made for the use of small planes on back country airstrips. While the original intent of the exception was to allow stakeholders to continue to access their land and livestock, air traffic has increased massively over time due to the popularity of the hobby of ‘bagging’ airstrips.”—Ruby Fulton“I decided to find a balance between literal representation and abstraction, incorporating various imagery shot on 16mm, Super8mm, and digital cameras. I shifted between abstract imagery of light, shadow, and movement during certain moments of reflection and emotive musical tonal shifts, while focusing on images that were more literal and representational during specific historical accounts/direct narration. I included planes and birds in the sky as I felt this duality and tension between technological development and nature is what this piece communicated to me.”—Margaret RorisonCAT“As I sifted through the hours of audio interviews, there was one bizarre story that kept coming up from multiple sources. When machinery was outlawed, some of the big farm equipment already present on the land was too heavy and too old and decrepit to make sense to move it out of the area. Instead, multiple Caterpillar tractors were buried under the earth. They dug their own graves and disappeared, forgotten except in these anecdotes.”—Ruby Fulton“I had experience in film and music videos before collaborating on Wilderness Suite, but never anything as abstract. I had to build my creative workflow from the ground up, with every decision requiring me to acquire a new skill! Having already completed When it became the wilderness, I felt more comfortable when I came to CAT, so I decided to keep on pushing myself to try new things. Through that experimental approach, I hoped to communicate the joy and child-like sense of wonder I get from wild places – you can run around like a maniac, but sometimes you get lost. I think that’s where this tone of reverence creeps in, especially toward the end of the work. The wilderness is not to be underestimated.”—Benjamin JamesWe as humans“The original title of this movement was ‘humans and human-related activity.’ As I listened through the interviews to find the story of this music, I was drawn to the words that came together with the word human – human nature, human waste, Forest Service humans, Nez Perce humans… This full string of ‘human’ phrases became the libretto and the repetitive music allows listeners to reflect on how we impact our environment, ending with a virtuosic display of human drumming.”—Ruby Fulton“What is public land? What is a private body? Is it possible to own and to love at the same time? Given the power to fundamentally impact our surroundings, how do we begin to understand our consequential entanglements with nature? How do we reconcile what we change, whether restorative or extractive, with how they change us in return? The visuals for We as Humans attempt to answer these questions through a collage of human activity, showing nurture and destruction in equal measure.”—XuanFrom point a to point b“One of my favorite lines from the whole text comes from this movement, when Jon Hunter from the Idaho Fish and Game Patrol talks about waking up alone in a cold outdoor setting and the deep pleasure of feeling the land warm up as the sun rises while drinking a cup of coffee. This is a sentiment to which I imagine anyone who has spent time alone in the outdoors can feel a connection.”—Ruby Fulton“My video for From point a to point b explores anti-development and solitude within the Frank Church Wilderness through algorithmically responsive video. I use pulsing topographical maps, manipulated archival survey photographs, and a digital depth scan of percussionist Jeff Stern to visualize the landscape as both data and sanctuary. The video responds to live audio cues, while certain visual elements incorporate chance during rendering, mirroring nature's inherent chaos and our capacity to exist within it. Subtitles rendered in composer Ruby Fulton's handwriting anchor the piece in human presence. I hope to reveal what emerges when human intervention ceases: a landscape that envelops us, offering home in untouched vastness.”—Rohan PathareWolf Song“I felt that this study of wilderness, though created and produced by humans, needed to at least attempt to include a non-human perspective. Dr. Marcie Carter’s experience with the Nez Perce Tribe’s Idaho Wolf Project became the story to this section. The music was partially inspired by video artist Stephanie Barber’s songwriting.”—Ruby Fulton“This past year of working on the visual/video element of the Wilderness Suite has been a complicated delight. It was a great exercise for me to respond to the exquisite composition of Ruby Fulton and musicianship of the icarus Quartet. I responded almost entirely to the cadence of the piece but was also moved by the environmental considerations at play in the project. The images and clips of interviews pointed to the sanctity of the non-human world and its delicate state in our current anthropocentric worldview.”—Stephanie BarberJust letting fires burn“Fire and fire management are huge topics in protected wilderness. Because of past human behavior, fire in our world has become dangerously out of balance. This movement details the struggle to manage fire while also allowing wilderness to remain untouched. As a steadfast optimist, I struggled with this movement because the topic is so grim. The truth is that we have over-fired our world for so long that fire on the land has become an existential threat.”—Ruby Fulton“Working on my video for Wilderness Suite was a pleasure. The movement I worked with was about fire, and the music that Ruby made holds all the sporadic, playful, and intense movement that you see in a fire, especially a huge one, so it was easy for me to illustrate fire along to it. I hand-drew all of the base animations using a digital tablet, then layered, stretched, and combined those animations with photos to create the video. When the photos of Big Creek, Idaho were supplied, I spent a long time looking at them side by side, comparing the before and after. I thought it was super interesting to see how time, fire, and lack of humans had affected the landscapes, so I wanted that to be a big part of the video.”—Sabrina NicholsWatching it come back“When fire is allowed to burn without human intervention, the landscape responds. Much as we learn new things about ourselves when experiencing grief, wilderness finds ways to grow out of the destruction of fire. As with grief, it is a slow and painful process. It can take decades for the land to look healthy and vibrant again after fire.”—Ruby Fulton“I’m an animator and it was challenging to work with the still images of the site. To make them move, I chose a few and frame by frame, redrew the photo of the landscape falling off the page. I love to work with repetition and was happy to find that element in the musical composition. Also, I wanted to work with time lapse tree growth. Like all of my animation projects, I wish I had more time. For me, it’s about the hand-drawn process — 12 drawings a second — and there is never enough time.”—Karen YasinskyYour attention expands“An early inspiration for this project was Richard Macguire’s graphic novel, Here. The concept of Here is to show the same location in space over large amounts of time. I find it fascinating to think that any place we might stand, whole layers of other activity have happened in that exact same location, and other layers will come after we are gone. Perhaps if we can learn to feel and appreciate how small we are in relation to time and history, we can expand our perspective on how to interact with the world, and with wilderness, in a way that shows respect for both what came before and what will happen next.”—Ruby Fulton“The phrase ‘We are just major little flies in a huge amount of time’ became a central source of inspiration for this work. The words of people imagining the landscapes and histories that once existed in a place intertwine with music that rhythmically and almost breath-like seems to ‘expand.’ The piece feels less like a movement through space and more like a crossing through time. Through the perspective of a fly leaping between moments, the animation invites viewers to drift between past and present, where memory, place, and imagination quietly overlap in a poetic, dreamlike sense of time travel.”—Maiko KikuchiINTERVIEWEE VOICES FEATUREDHolly Akenson, Taylor Wilderness Research Center CaretakerJim Akenson, Taylor Wilderness Research Center CaretakerEdgar T. Allen, Fire Control OfficerRay E. Arnold, Backcountry PilotTravis Bullock, Outfitter and HunterMarcie Carter, Biologist, Member of Nez Perce TribeTeresa Cavazos Cohn, GeographerShane Doyle, Native American Scholar, Member of Apsáalooke NationRichard H. Holm Jr., Aviation HistorianJon Hunter, Idaho Fish and Game Backcountry Patrol OfficerWesley Keller, Fishery Biologist for the Nez Perce TribeEdwin E. Krumpe, Taylor Wilderness Research Center DirectorG. Wayne Minshall, Vegetation and Stream EcologistMicaela Patrini, ResearcherG. Jon Patton, McCall Outdoor Science Center StaffJames M. Peek, Vegetation and Wildlife EcologistMorgan Zedalis, Payette National Forest ArcheologistSteve Zettel, Outfitter and HunterACKNOWEDGEMENTSWilderness Suite was generously supported by the following organizations: Aaron Copland Fund for Music Alice M. Ditson FundAmphion FoundationBaltimore County Commission on Arts and SciencesBrookby FoundationMaryland State Arts CouncilNational Endowment for the Arts Tri-M FoundationT. Rowe Price Foundation University of Idaho’s Confluence Labicarus Quartet extends their deepest gratitude to these organizations along with their trustees, representatives, and staff members, without whom none of this would have been possible.PARTNERSPresenting organization: Mind on Fire https://www.mindonfire.org/ James Young, executive director Jason Charney, production designer and technical directorMind On Fire makes music by living composers and showcases the talents of performing artists, building creative access and collaborative partnerships in Baltimore.Mind on Fire was founded in 2017 by a small contingent of classical and experimental musicians with a goal to bring new, contemporary classical music back to Baltimore. Mind on Fire takes notated music out of the conservatory and puts it into dialogue with the incredible, radical art ecology of the city. By pairing new classical work with local experimental artists (musicians, poets, dancers, filmmakers, and visual artists), it is our intention to engender a sense of community and camaraderie between a diverse group of art makers and the audiences who follow them.In the following eight years of operation, we have produced 47 concerts featuring 125 separate performances presented to over 4,500 attendees. When institutional and independent artists work together, the commerce of ideas is often dynamic and surprising. What happens when disparate resources, sensibilities, and expertises are shared in the pursuit of art making? Mind on Fire seeks to answer that question by presenting exceptionally compelling art performances by people of all disciplines and skill levels.Environmental partner: Baltimore Tree Trust http://baltimoretreetrust.org/The Baltimore Tree Trust is a nonprofit dedicated to growing Baltimore’s urban tree canopy to improve public health, strengthen neighborhoods, and build a more climate-resilient city. Through community partnerships and hands-on planting and care, we support equitable urban tree plantings as part of Maryland’s 5 Million Trees Initiative, helping ensure every neighborhood can benefit from the power of trees. Stop by our table tonight or visit baltimoretreetrust.org to learn more.