Yellowstone National Park Â
Behind the Parks Interview
Yellowstone has a way of waking something up in you.
Join me for a behind-the-scenes conversation with Jordan, composer for Yellowstone National Park—about turning geysers, vast skies, and raw wonder into music.
The Composer
Jordan Jinosko
Multi-award-winning composer Jordan Jinosko is celebrated across concert, media and film music industries, gaining international acclaim for the “subtle and powerful” and “cinematic scope” (Wisconsin Public Radio) of her work.
Drawing inspiration from mythology, nature, her lived experiences as a trans woman of color, and her social & environmental activism, Jordan’s compositions have been commissioned and performed by leading and Grammy Award-winning organizations and performers worldwide.
Jinosko studied music composition and music theory at the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music’s pre-collegiate division (ECMS). Her composition mentors have included Michael Daugherty (Grammy winner), Bright Sheng (MacArthur Genius), Evan Chambers, Kristen Kuster, Margaret Henry, and others.
She took lessons in NYC with Juilliard professor, Samuel Adler and has participated in symposia led by faculty at Juilliard, Yale, Princeton, and Eastman.
https://www.jordanjinosko.com/
The Music
Of Fire and Water
Written for violin and marimba and approx. 12 minutes in duration. In the composer’s words:
 “Drawing its title from the words of the environmentalist John Muir (who once described Yellowstone as “a strange region of fire and water”), this piece presents a series of vignettes that collectively comprise a brief history of the park.
 ”Gold” expresses the longing felt by settlers who arrived during the mid-1800s Gold Rush, marking the beginning of a new era of desperation. For these miners, who suffered extremely harsh conditions, gold provided hope for a better life. Musically, the shimmering sextuplet motif that moves through various chords evokes the glint of gold in a flowing river.
 “Fire” celebrates the beautiful yet terrifying geothermal features of Yellowstone: geysers, thermal pools, and hot springs. This movement also contemplates the likely eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera, a supervolcano whose explosion would cause global famine, extinction, and the long-term cooling of the planet.
 Drawing on the park’s long history of natural beauty, “Spirit” offers up a conclusive, lyrical, and folk-music-inspired tune. Its melody presents the timeless spirit of Yellowstone—the soul shared by its animals, natural wonders, and all the people who have explored the region since the Pleistocene.”
The Artists
- Michael Eardley, recording engineer with Tanglewood Productions in Reno Nevada
- Alissa Teachout, marimba player from Reno, Nevada
