I was twenty-two when I composed When the Last Tree Has Fallen as the centerpiece of my composition recital to graduate from the University of North Texas in 1993. At the time, the destruction of the Amazon rainforest was dominating the news, and I was deeply concerned about its impact on our climate. Decades later, that concern has only grown. Since I completed this piece, the world has lost over 420 million hectares of forest globally. The Amazon alone has shrunk by 10%, losing 390,547 square kilometers—an area larger than Montana. Yet despite decades of scientific warnings, the world’s attention has dulled, and the climate crisis continues to escalate.
The Amazon rainforest, often called the lungs of the Earth, produces 20% of the world’s oxygen and absorbs vast amounts of carbon dioxide. It is home to over half of the planet’s plant and animal species, yet deforestation threatens to erase countless lifeforms. As the trees fall, carbon emissions rise, rainfall patterns shift, wildfires intensify, and Indigenous communities lose their ancestral lands. Without the rainforest’s natural balance, we face more droughts, extreme weather, and global temperature increases—if deforestation continues unchecked, the Amazon’s collapse alone could raise global temperatures by 0.25°C.
Against this urgent backdrop, When the Last Tree Has Fallen is my tribute to those fighting to protect the rainforests and the Indigenous peoples who have lived there for centuries. Drawing from my studies in ethnomusicology, I incorporated folk melodies and rhythms from the Amazon, blending them with my own compositional voice. This work was also shaped by my musical influences at the time: the intensity of John Coltrane’s Africa, orchestrated by Eric Dolphy, and the rhythmic pulse of minimalist composers like John Adams and Steve Reich. I was equally obsessed with the drama of Monteverdi’s madrigals and Wagnerian opera, both of which inform the expressive storytelling of this piece.
For this work, I chose an ensemble that was essentially a one-on-a-part orchestra, the largest group I could fit on the recital hall stage while also ensuring I could find enough musicians. I later realized that this instrumentation was nearly identical to what would become the standard for the San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra (SFCCO), of which I am a founding member.
Designed as a kind of mini-opera, When the Last Tree Has Fallen unfolds theatrically. The text, which I wrote, drives the structure, while the music immerses the listener in the rainforest’s soundscape—bird calls, monkey cries, the distant rumble of thunder, the rhythmic chop of axes, and the final crash of falling trees. These sounds are not just musical effects; they are echoes of a vanishing world.
As we stand at a critical moment in history, this piece serves as both a warning and a lament. The destruction of the rainforests is not just a distant crisis—it is an unfolding tragedy that affects us all. But even as the last tree falls, there is still time to listen, to act, and to protect what remains.
