The Secret Sound of Ponds with David Rothenberg & special guests
Thursday 20 March 19:00 until 23:00
Brighton & Hove : The Rose Hill, Brighton, BN1 4JJ
Speaker: David Rothenberg
Part of the series: SHL Digital public events
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Image credit: Secret Sound of Ponds cover photo by Eva Bakkeslett
Debut UK performance of interspecies musician David Rothenberg’s Secret Sound of Ponds. Get your ears down to the Rose Hill for a concert and talk that will tune you in to the unexpected acoustic delights of our tiny freshwater friends.
In Secret Sounds of Ponds, environmental musician, philosopher and ecopoet David Rothenberg tosses a microphone into a pond and we witness an entirely new realm: the unexpected and stirring rhythms of some of the smallest and loudest creatures on Earth. Recording the songs of the animals and plants inhabiting each pond reveals a different perspective than what we meet in our human society. Each pond brings us closer to a new understanding of the non-human world that we share.
Rothenberg has previously investigated, recorded, and collaborated with the music of birds and whales. Now he writes, "Having heard the pond, I want to join the pond, making music no one species could make alone." His energizing and technological research combines with a musician's and poet's creative aptitude as he discovers the orchestration of ecosystems, uncovering new connections lurking beneath the silent surface.
At the Rose Hill in Brighton he reveals these local secrets in the UK for the first time - join us for a concert and conversation.
http://secretsoundsofponds.world
Audiences can also enjoy a new live audio stream from the dew pond at Brighton’s very own urban rewilding project, Wilding Waterhall, in alliance with the Wild House project, University of Brighton.
The Secret Sounds of Ponds is brought to you by Lost Property, Sound Art Brighton and Sussex Digital Humanities Lab.
The Secret Sounds of Ponds is an album and a book
https://davidrothenberg.hearnow.com/secret-songs-of-ponds
https://www.roofbooks.com/secret-sounds-of-ponds
More listening:
https://soundcloud.com/user-828525518/sets/the-secret-sounds-of-ponds
Musician and philosopher David Rothenberg wrote Why Birds Sing, Bug Music, Survival of the Beautiful, Nightingales in Berlin and many other books, published in at least eleven languages. His two previous books of poetry are Blue Cliff Record: Zen Echoes and Invisible Mountains. His last book was Whale Music. He has more than forty recordings out, including One Dark Night I Left My Silent House with Marilyn Crispell on ECM, and most recently Just Leave It All Behind and Homayoun. He has performed or recorded with Pauline Oliveros, Peter Gabriel, Ray Phiri, Suzanne Vega, Scanner, Elliott Sharp, Iva Bittova, and the Karnataka College of Percussion. Rothenberg is a Distinguished Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.
"It's now obviously urgent that we find a way back into balance with nature that observes, respects and integrates us into what we have left of the natural world. It's great to see and listen to David Rothenberg's work, harnessing science and music to point out the path of potential dialogue with the natural world and all the wonderful creatures within it." —Peter Gabriel
"Mind-expanding. Generative. A book full of sonic marvels. Rothenberg shows how deep listening can change us." —David George Haskell, Sounds Wild and Broken and Songs of Trees
"On the page and through his musical instruments, David Rothenberg sounds like no one else. That's because he listens like no one else. Much more than a reading experience, this book is a listening experience. Savor these pages." —Carl Safina, Beyond Words and Alfie and Me
"This music woke something in my brain that I never knew was there. The sounds and the intelligent beauty of the words have given me an entirely new category of music: one that makes me feel ecstatic and serene, thrilled and calm at the same time." —Jay Griffiths, Wild and A Country Called Childhood
Get your tickets HERE: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/lost-property-arts-collective-cic/the-secret-sound-of-ponds-david-rothenberg-special-guests/e-ddzmeb
By: Elena Dennison
Last updated: Monday, 24 February 2025