Arviat (Mar 29/06) - French audio artist Vivienne Spiteri became interested in the sounds of snow while attending university in Ottawa.

A Canadian living in France, Spiteri has been performing on the harpsichord for about two decades.

During her time at university, Spiteri's professor was interested in Canada’s North and had worked recording throat singers.

While discussing his Northern experience, the professor mentioned how Inuit use many words for different types of snow.

That made Spiteri realize if there are different names for different snows, there must also be different sounds associated with them.

That became her impetus for travelling to Arviat earlier this month to record the sounds of snow.

"I will enter the sounds into a computer and then use various software to transform them into a musical piece with the sounds of snow," said Spiteri.

"So, it's not music with notes. It's music with sounds."

The industry term used for Spiteri’s method would be concrete or soundscape music, a term given to projects when artists go out and record natural sounds.

Spiteri found her visit to Arviat to be a powerful experience with nature, especially the wind. "I had never heard many of these sounds before.

"They were amazing, unique and quite scary in some ways.

"When we went out on the land, I was really struck by the contact with nature.”

Spiteri said she was somewhat disappointed in the preparations awaiting her arrival in Arviat.

She said there was a misunderstanding with her contacts in the Department of Education as to her needs for the project.

"People in Arviat told me I was 100 years too late for many of the tools I had hoped to record being used.

"The bone and antler of the past had been replaced with metal and plastic.

"I wanted to record a sled runner going across the snow that was made of frozen fish and meat tied together with skins, but I couldn’t get anywhere close to that.

"It was disappointing, but you have to go forward with what you have."

Spiteri will begin working on her piece this coming June and expects it will take nine months to complete.

Her work with snow will be a partner piece to one she wrote in 2003 on silence.

"The work revolves around endangered species. Silence is an endangered species and snow is becoming an endangered species.

"These are important issues to me because I'm more of a nature person than a people person."