Conversations about environmentalism within the field of music and sound studies are generally not robust, but UNT music theory professor Andrew Chung is working to change that. This summer, Chung studied at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS) library in Worcester, Massachusetts, for a project to examine the musical connection to Earth's current climatological condition. The research was supported by a fellowship from AAS with funds derived from a grant to the society by the U.S. National Endowment for the Humanities.

"There's a tendency to romanticize music as being the purest expression of the inner heart and the spirit. But music really is affected by worldly goals and concerns and activities," Chung says.