Composer plays with birds to create his own kind of music – Harvard Gazette

"The Boori Sound" from "Nightingales in Berlin" includes a nightingale, Rothenberg on clarinet, Lembe Lokk's voice and Sanna Salmenkallio on violin. It was registered at Viktoriapark, Kreuzberg, Berlin, in May 2017.

"Magic Music" from 2013, from "Bug Music", presents Rothenberg on bbad clarinet and his son, Umru, iPad, playing live with cicadas in Lexington, Virginia, in the spring of 2012.

Rothenberg grew up in Connecticut with parents who listened to clbadical music while indulging in his own penchant for jazz – not the jazz of Miles Davis' day or John Coltrane, but an obscure music of his own. less known artists.

"I'm constantly looking for something out of the map, some different musicians, I'm studying them and I'm celebrating them," he said. "It's the in-between, the less recognized people who are the most interesting."

Never making determined career choices, Rothenberg followed his instincts until he firmly connected to music and nature in the 1990s.

"I was in the music, but it was not planned. I've met people from all over the world interested in this, "he said. "I was interested in sounds that I had previously ignored and I just decided to play music with birds and I realized that it was a whole new thing that I had continue."

Since then, 16 albums, three books, a documentary film and an international fame have enabled Rothenberg's work to take the place of contemporary sound. But the low height of locusts when it is cold outside, or the sound of blue jays when they sleep, are stories that scientists have not yet learned to read completely, he said.

"Scientists have to measure thousands of times and be objective," he said. "But the nightingale and the mocking bird have the most interesting and complicated songs. Can you quantify that?

Rothenberg believes the answer lies in perspective. Ask a biologist, a poet, a musician, a naturalist, a farmer and a hunter-gatherer to describe the same bird and they will all say different things. He encourages people to listen to them – as well as what is happening in their backyard. This can be interesting.

"Nature surrounds us with mystery and mystery," he said. "It is not difficult to hear these things, you just have to listen."

Rothenberg will talk about the relationship between man and nature, will play his clarinet and present "What nature sounds are music" at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University on Saturday. 2:30 pm to 30:30 pm. 125 Arborway, Boston. Registration requested. https://bit.ly/2CPUI5q