REED AWAKENINGS

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Reed Awakenings is a dialogue between oboe (or soprano saxophone or clarinet) and a Eurasian Reed Warbler recorded by Patrik Åberg in Sweden in May, 1976. This piece uses the first 12 seconds of the recording, playfully returning again and again to try to understand and communicate with the bird. It is also a conversaton between humans and Nature.
It opens with a flourish of joyful actvity, with the human instrumentalist eagerly keeping up with Nature’s “meta-bird” whose abilities are astonishingly swift and varied, as represented by the computer-processed acrobatics. The second half is sombre in which the player spends more time listening to and contemplating the bird, who seems to be speaking for all birds.
This piece was composed in March 2025 as part of an ongoing series of electroacoustic works about human interacton with Nature, the environment and climate breakdown.

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