Ice Field is a musical composition

Musical composition

Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

 by Henry Brant

Henry Brant

Henry Dreyfuss Brant was a Canadian-born American composer. An expert orchestrator with a flair for experimentation, many of Brant's works featured spatialization techniques.- Biography :...

, for large orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

l groups and organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

, commissioned by Other Minds

Other Minds

Other Minds is a San Francisco based private 501 not-for-profit organization, founded in 1992 by Charles Amirkhanian and Jim Newman...

 for a December 2001 premiere by the San Francisco Symphony

San Francisco Symphony

The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...

. It was awarded the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Music

Pulitzer Prize for Music

The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer did not call for such a prize in his will, but had arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year...

, and premiered on December 12 at Davies Symphony Hall

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall

Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall, the concert hall component of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, was built in 1980 at a cost of US$28 million to give the San Francisco Symphony a permanent home. The hall has a seating capacity of 2743 persons...

 in San Francisco. A, "'spatial narrative,'" or, "spatial organ concerto

Organ concerto

An organ concerto is a piece of music, an instrumental concerto for a pipe organ soloist with an orchestra. The form first evolves in the 18th century, when composers including George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach wrote organ concertos with small orchestras, and with...

," and thus an example of Brant's use of spatialization

Spatial music

Spatial music, music in space, or space music uses the localization of sounds in physical space as a compositional element in music, in sound art, and in sound editing for audio recordings, film, and video...

, the work utilizes more than 100 players.
The piece was, "inspired by his experience, as a 12-year old in 1926, of crossing the Atlantic by ship, which navigated carefully through a large field of icebergs

Ice field

An ice field is an area less than 50,000 km² of ice often found in the colder climates and higher altitudes of the world where there is sufficient precipitation. It is an extensive area of interconnected valley glaciers from which the higher peaks rise as nunataks...

in the North Atlantic."