An internationally renowned Italian pianist performed his composition “Elegy for the Arctic” on a platform floating on the Arctic Ocean for a Greenpeace campaign to protect the area.
Ludovico Einaudi accepted to join the Greenpeace campaign and travelled to the Svalbard islands in Norway for a unique performance on Friday, braving sub-zero temperatures.
While playing against the backdrop of the Wahlenbergbreen glacier, the Italian musician explained that, through his music, he wanted to support the voice of eight million people from across the world demanding protection for the Arctic environment.
The musician, known for his composition for the film, Black Swan and the television serial, Doctor Zhivago, travelled onboard the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise on the eve of the week-long meeting of the OSPAR Commission, which could secure the first protected area in Arctic international waters.
OSPAR is an institution consisting of 15 governments and the European Union, aimed at protecting the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic.
The commission started a four-day meeting in Tenerife, Spain, on June 20, 2016.
The massive early retreat of sea ice due to the effects of climate change allowed the construction of a 2.6 x 10 metre (8.5 x 33 feet) long artificial iceberg, made from more than 300 triangles of wood attached together and weighing a total of nearly two tonnes (2.2 tonnes).
A grand piano was then placed on top of the platform.
Greenpeace released the video of the unique performance on Tuesday to mark the start of the meeting by the OSPAR commission.
The area, in size, would be equivalent to the United Kingdom, and nearly 10 per cent of the area for which Greenpeace Spain is demanding Arctic Sanctuary status.
According to Greenpeace, despite the significance and scale of the problem, the continuing loss of sea ice volume caused by rising temperatures, the Arctic is actually the least protected ocean.
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