Territories, Refrains
for amplified flutes, clarinet, harp, percussion, and light.
This piece was written with and for Ensemble Adapter. It was premiered in Wedding, Berlin at ExRotaprint in February 2020.
Territories, refrains is a transcription(s) of field recordings of animal sound cultures and ecosystems from several archives including the Macaulay Sound Library (Cornell Lab of Ornithology), the Yellowstone National Park Sound Library, and Wild Ambience. Cicadas and katydids, synchronous fireflies, wolves, coyotes, and various birds and frogs of lowland tropical rainforest are represented here. Synchronous fireflies are performed using flickering penlights.The arc of this work, though moving freely around the world, is guided by the time-keeping of these animals and ecosystems - following a trajectory from roughly late afternoon (Illinois cicada chorus) to midnight (Sarawak, Malaysia rainforest frog chorus). The title territories, refrains is a reference to Elizabeth Grosz's book of the same title, in which Darwin is synthesized with writings of Deleuze to unfold the "animal origins of art."