Whalesound 3: Whales Surround Us (Concert Version)
David Rothenberg, Bjarne Kvinnsland & Trond Lossius (Ocean Heard Collective)
We created a 24-channel ambisonic sound installation made out of the songs and calls of sperm whales, pilot whales, killer whales, blue whales, bowhead whales, and an occasional clarinetist trying to make music with humpback whales. The specific aim was a difficult one—to tell precise stories about whale sounds only with their sounds, including as little explanatory text as possible. It was originally for the Bergen Museum of Natural History in Norway, then a concert version was performed at the Ultima Festival in Oslo in 2024.
This version will be a new, recomposed version of this piece especially for the Reforesters ambisonics system, also combining live performance with David Rothenberg on bass clarinet and contralto clarinet, riffing on his years of experience playing live with whales as detailed in his book Whale Music (MIT Press 2024) and his numerous albums on the subject, from Whale Music to Whale Music Remixed, and Who Knows Why Whales Sing?
A playlist of many of these pieces can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0k0DeHgaUUavi0W1bXxj4U?si=4d65487a03ca435c
We will bring the moving sounds of whales to Brooklyn as they have never been heard before….
This is one of three events at Reforesters this December. The other two are:
The collective Ocean Heard is composed of three sound artist / composers with years of experience mixing spatial audio and natural sound.
Artist: David Rothenberg, Bjarne Kvinnsland, Trond Lossius
Musician and philosopher David Rothenberg wrote Why Birds Sing, Bug Music, Survival of the Beautiful and many other books, published in at least eleven languages. He has more than forty recordings out, including One Dark Night I Left My Silent House which came out on ECM, and more recently Who Knows Why Whales Sing? and Lost Steps. He has performed or recorded with Pauline Oliveros, Peter Gabriel, Ray Phiri, Suzanne Vega, Scanner, Elliott Sharp, Umru, Iva Bittová, and the Karnataka College of Percussion. In 2024 he won a Grammy Award as part of For the Birds, in the category of Best Boxed Set. Whale Music and Secret Sounds of Ponds are his latest books. Nightingales In Berlin and Eastern Anthems are his latest films. Rothenberg is Distinguished Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and has played music live with whales for twenty years.
Bjarne Kvinnsland is a versatile composer with a broad international network and an artistic background rooted in music, dance, theatre and electronic art. He often works in collaborative formats that explore new technologies.
He collects sounds, composes music for performances and installations, collaborates with, among others, The Whale, a new museum in the North of Norway, the Natural History Museum in Bergen and The Climate House at the University of Oslo. He also works with photography, light, sculpture, dance, theatre and film, and has done several text/sound projects. For several years, he has worked in collaborative forms that explore new technology, and is managing among others Nordic Voices, POING, Risør Chamber Music Festival, Notam and Karl Seglem.
Trond Lossius is a sound and installation artist based in Bergen, Norway. He is one of the world authorities on surround sound diffusion systems. His projects investigate sound, place and space, using sound spatialisation and multichannel audio as an invisible and temporal sculptural medium in works engaging with the site. He is also an avid field recorder, mostly preoccupied with the soundscape of the suburb, recorded using ambisonic surround microphones. He finds that such recordings capture a sense of place rather than sound. He is currently professor and PhD leader at The Norwegian Film School and professor II at The Grieg Academy. He has previously been Head of Research at Oslo National Academy of the Arts. For many years ha held various positions at BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts. He is one of the developers of the software framework Jamoma, and he has ported Ambisonic Toolkit to a set of plugins for the Reaper DAW. He supervises PhD candidates at several institutions in Norway and Sweden.
***
Come Early to Elevate Your Experience with Adaptogenic Foods and Teas
Reforesters Laboratory is an experimental adaptogen cafe and sound clinic located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We utilize music – including spatial, sub-bass-centered, and organic instrumentation – along with breathwork, meditation, art, plant care and adaptogenic, nutritional foods + beverages to cultivate kindness—both physical and spiritual. We aim to create an environment that offers peace, space, and clarity, helping people understand the connections between themselves, their communities, and the world around them. To that end, we offer "pay what you can" ticket options on all events and classes.