Night Songs for the Birds of North America

by Joshua Dumas

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	1.	One 09:59
	2.	Two 09:58
	3.	Three 09:59
	4.	Four 09:58
	5.	Five 09:59
	6.	Six 09:54

about

Originally installed in Chicago's Lincoln Park Conservatory Fern Room, curated and supported by Experimental Sound Studios, Night Songs explores translation, memory, and mass extinction in the anthropocene. Joshua Dumas arranged six common human lullabies from memory for organ and synthesizer. He then researched the calls of North American avian species on the IUCN Red List, birds considered vulnerable, endangered, and some already extinct. Whitney Johnson (strings), Josh Bell (horns), and Dumas (piano), improvised in response to those bird calls, and the resulting melodic fragments play at random over the organ interspersed with subtle ghostly versions of the actual birds. Over the duration of the piece the melodic fragments gradually degrade, becoming wind, simulating the current rate of avian extinction.

Supplemental material: nightsongsbirdsofna.tumblr.com

ess.org/esscalendar/2017/1/1/florasonic-joshua-dumas-night-songs-for-the-birds-of-north-america

[Part of the Climate Data Suite series]

credits

released January 11, 2018

Whitney Johnson: Viola and Violin
Josh Bell: Saxophones
Joshua Dumas: Concept, Arrangement, Piano, Algorithms

Alex Inglizian: Engineering, Production Support, Algorithms

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Joshua Dumas Brooklyn, New York

Joshua Dumas is a composer and sound artist. His work includes music for film, opera, dance, theatre, installation and performance. He plays with Mending, Tired Circuits, AM Higgins, and Quarter Mile Thunder.

Abolition. Reparations. Jubilee. Wealth Redistribution. Total Liberation for All Beings.
he/they ... more

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