It might have been the smallest crowd Ludovico Einaudi ever played to, but the setting hardly could be more stunning.
Earlier this month, while floating on a small platform in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Norway, the renowned Italian composer played a grand piano as pieces of a sprawling glacier crumbled nearby.
Einaudi performed an original composition, "Elegy for the Arctic," that he had written for the occasion. The performance was sponsored by Greenpeace, the global environmental activist group, as part of a campaign to persuade world leaders to safeguard the Arctic.
Scientists have warned that the Arctic has been thawing much faster than expected. Those changes have potentially serious implications for the world's climate, for wildlife and for individual economies.
[Arctic tea toss photo becomes Internet sensation]
"The Arctic ocean is the least protected sea in the world, its high seas currently have no legal safeguards," Greenpeace wrote in releasing the video of Einaudi's performance. "As the ice cover decreases with rising temperatures, this unique area is losing its frozen shield, leaving it exposed to reckless exploitation, destructive fishing trawlers and risky oil drilling."
This week in Spain, representatives from more than a dozen European governments are meeting to discuss ways to protect and manage the northeast Atlantic Ocean, including the Arctic.
Delegates from 15 European countries are meeting at the commission to discuss the management of the northeast Atlantic, including the Arctic. The commission, which has existed since the 1970s, has acknowledged that despite the low population and isolation of the Arctic region, "human activities such as fishing and offshore petroleum production remain significant."