Ruby Turok-Squire
Oberlin College
Project
Notating Nature: Birds, Whales and Other Musicians
French Polynesia, New Zealand, Ecuador (Galapagos Islands), Costa Rica, Spain (La Gomera, Canary Islands)
During my Watson year I will record, analyze and write music inspired by the sonic vocabularies of certain renowned species of musicians, including humpback whales, the Tui and Kea birds, Darwin’s finches, fur seals, scarlet macaws, howler monkeys, tree frogs and canaries. Along the way, I will also study with composers, volunteer in rehabilitation and assist evolutionary biologists. I will explore local human and non-human musics side by side, in order to ask, how do all animal musics relate? Music will be my tool for approaching much broader questions: how does our art emerge from the landscapes surrounding us? In this time of environmental crisis, how might we reintegrate our views of ourselves and of nature?