Song for the Hoopoe (Polyphony 071023)

​
​“O you people! We have been taught the speech of birds and have been given of all things: this, behold, is indeed a manifest favor!” Quran 27:16

In July I spent two weeks on an olive farm in Italy. The cycle of each day was an endlessly rich, varied, and beautiful experience for me. I rose at sunrise to hear the morning chorus of birds; I eventually identified over 20 different birds, and there were more. Their quiet, early, ethereal vapor of sound gradually dissolved, as a mist, and gave way to a more ordinary morning music, largely dominated by the Eurasian Blackcap. The sun quickly grew strong, and I began every day by reading, among other books I had packed, Attar’s The Conference of the Birds, a 12th-century monument of Persian mystical poetry—a slow read, as the language is difficult and gives quite a bit to ponder. One morning I was sitting in an unusual place, and a strange bird, about crow-sized, flew up and sat briefly in the olive tree just next to me. I watched it closely, admired it, and made a note of its features—a strange, curved beak, and a striking cap—so that I might later research what it was. It was both beautiful and frightening. It flew away with perfect certitude. I looked it up immediately: a Hoopoe…the main character in Attar’s poem. Never in my dreams did I think I’d ever see an actual hoopoe, let alone there, then. The experience was overwhelming and took me several hours to process.
​
I didn’t see it again. Over the next several days I composed this piece. Like most of my concert and electroacoustic music, it is polyphonic; its stylized five-voice format refers directly to the Italian madrigal, though the non-semantic vocal material invokes an almost abstract cinematic experience. I’ve had a strong conviction for over 20 years that music can be made with this type of raw material, which charts the entire range of what is possible with the human voice, and points to experiences and expressions both primal and ordinary. This particular work is special perhaps in that it reflects the degree to which the experience I had just had shook the core of my being, and in a most delightful, affirmative, and transformative way. I highly recommend listening to it with headphones to experience the full breadth and vitality of its unusual sounds and their detailed polyphonic interaction.