Bird-like Things in Things like Trees

BIRD-LIKE THINGS IN THINGS LIKE TREES is a multi-media work emerging from the collaborative work of composer Douglas Boyce and artist Rob Tarbell. An interlocking network of compositions and visual works derive from the songs and flights of the birds encountered amidst the landscape of Auvillar, France, observed by the artists while in residency at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts France. The concert version of the work, proposed for performance at the Intersections festival will combine music for saxophone, clarinet piano, and live electronic processing with visual projections of non-figurative paintings. The images and the musical material are derived from the flights, shapes, and songs of birds. While this project clearly draws inspiration from prior works within both of its antecedent traditions, such as the descriptive paintings of Audobon, or the ornithological explorations of Olivier Messiaen, it engages directly neither with the activities of transcription of bird calls or of verisimilar anatomical drawings – the project might be understood as speculative ornithology, sketches of and transcriptions of the songs of unknown birds. What is under interrogation, however, is the situation of observation, the phenomenological, human experience of these lines of flight. Beyond an obvious reference to the songs of birds, the musical work will evoke flight, motion, and context, presenting an imagined landscape for these imaginary avians. Movements will consist of ‘species’ and ‘environments’ – representations of both these hypothetical fauna and the flora through which they move.