A remarkable homage to Earth’s most ephemeral element, Water Music is a luminous collection of photographs by Marjorie Ryerson accompanied by essays, poems and songs from an international lineup of musicians as they pay tribute to a precious natural resource: water. “I was enthralled by the challenge of capturing on film the astonishing breadth of ways in which water presents itself,” Ryerson, a professor of communications at Castleton State College, writes in the book’s preface. Her breathtaking pictures feature the capricious substance in a variety of locales and incarnations silvery rivers and dusky swamps, cascading rain and frozen falls, from the mighty Mississippi to the Puget Sound.
To supplement her photographs, Ryerson compiled the wonderful, water-inspired reflections of a stellar group of songsmiths. Big-name contributors to the volume include Dave Brubeck, Mark O’Connor, George Winston, Mickey Hart and RenŽe Fleming, among many others. The book also contains the sheet music to some very special tunes, like Pete Seeger’s River of My People and Bruce Cockburn’s Water Into Wine. Revenues from sales of this unique volume will go to the Water Music Fund, which was established at the United Nations Foundation to provide clean water to people all over the world.
