Avian Telemetry

Commissioned by the Shi Institute for Sustainability as a collaboration with John Quinn (biology), Michele Speitz (English literature) and Omar Carmenates (percussion). The combines research on avian biology, soundscape ecology, romantic-period British poetry, ecoacoustic music, and avant-garde percussion performance. Composed by Matthew Burtner.

Avian Telemetry (2018) was commissioned by the Shi Center for Sustainability for the Furman Percussion Ensemble as part of a birdsong collaboration with John Quinn (biology), Michele Speitz (English literature) and Omar Carmenates (percussion). The musical composition brings together current research on avian biology, soundscape ecology, romantic-period British poetry, ecoacoustic music, and avant-garde percussion performance. The piece uses various forms of measurement procedures and transliteration devices to explore human-nature interaction through a focus on birdsong. These “telemetries” include field recordings, musical transcriptions of environmental sound, sonifications of scientific data about bird habitat and behavior, and readings of romantic poetry employing mimesis of birdsong. Further, the piece employs second order transliterations, treating each of these modes of telemetry as a source for further remapping. For example, a snare drum quartet plays the iambic pentameter rhythm transcribed from a Charlotte Smith poem about a nightingale, and a keyboard percussion instrument performs a melody mapped onto a sonification of biophonic data while an ensemble of guiros accompanies a sonification of anthropomorphic data. The result is a highly idiosyncratic and varied blend of human mappings of birdsong, covering a wide range of fields and time periods. In this way the musical composition brings diverse disciplines into counterpoint through live percussion performance on stage, creating an evocative space for the contemplation of avian habitat and conservation through music.

The work premiered at the International Renaissance Conference in Greensville, South Carolina in 2018 and was subsequently performed at the PASIC percussion conference in 2018. The piece was recorded for release in 2020 and published as an album by Parma Recordings and as a music video by Four/Ten Media.