WENDY REID'S Ambient Bird-Live Oak is in its fifth year of what is now an annual event on the fall equinox: a 44-minute interspecies sonic landscape which reflects an eco-centric philosophy of connecting with all living creatures and the environment.

The ensemble includes an African Grey parrot and experimental musicians working with the ambient sounds, specifically, the birds of Live Oak Park: Northern Mockingbirds, Downy Woodpeckers, Mourning Doves, Bewick's Wrens, Western Bluebirds, Anna's Hummingbirds, Western Scrub-Jays, American Robins, Dark-eyed Juncos, Oak Titmice, Stone Pigeons, American Crows -all part of an event that is intended to bring everyone and everything together, and honor the park's indigenous inhabitants, the Ohlone People.

The structure of this work can be described as a musical process which attempts to reflect
nature’s manner of operations: a spatially notated score of sonic fragments transcribed from bird-human interactions and a Native American chant is interpreted and performed by the musicians within the ambient environment of Live Oak Park. Contextual in nature, the work allows performers to act according to unpredictable conditions and variables which arise within the musical continuity. In performance, an attempt is made at a spontaneous unforced growing of sound and silence in which emphasis is placed on formation rather than pre-established form, as in the building and shaping of cell-like units in living processes.

This site-specific piece, as with the first incantation, Ambient Bird 433,  pays homage to JOHN CAGE’S composition, 4’33” (1952). At sunset, following the performance, BRENDA HUTCHINSON leads everyone in bell-ringing:  dailybell, created by composer and sound artist Brenda Hutchinson in 2008, is an ongoing aspirational project based on the premise that something as inarguable as the movement of the Earth can be used as a point of unity and awareness among  groups of people who might otherwise find it impossible to agree.

about the location: There is no formal seating: the audience sits on the stone steps or grass, stands, or wanders.

This performance is made possible with a grant from the City of Berkeley.