Songscapes for wind ensemble and electronics by Thom Limbert — premiere performance

Описание: Premiere performance of Songscapes for wind ensemble and electronics, composed by Thom Limbert.
December 5, 2025 | Weill Hall | Green Music Center | Sonoma State University
SSU Symphonic Wind Ensemble | Dr. Andy Collinsworth, director
Perusal score available here:
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/3ad0a8c881.html]

Program Notes:
At its core, Songscapes is a celebration of the sonic wonders that may be found in the natural environments in Sonoma County, CA. The musical inspiration (and much of the sound in the electronic accompaniment) comes from the audio data I discovered as part of Soundscapes to Landscapes, a Sonoma County biodiversity study which in 2022 involved placing remote audio recorders all over the county’s regional parks. Having been graciously granted access to the study’s audio database by Sonoma State University Geographic Ecologist, Dr. Matt Clark, and researchers at Point Blue Conservation Science, I combed through thousands of recordings and spectrograms to gather the most interesting bird songs and other natural soundscapes. The piece progresses through several episodic musical impressions of the sounds I discovered, accompanied by electronics incorporating the sounds themselves, which include the songs, calls, and drumming of over 30 bird species, as well as insects, squirrels, coyotes, and even the rare northern California thunder storm.

A spacious introduction features individual woodwinds imitating several Red-Winged Blackbird songs that are heard in various forms in the electronics. The woodwinds then freely repeat the blackbird songs swelling to create a cloud of sound (a cloud is the name of a group of blackbirds). This gives way to several pulsating sections employing the repeated blackbird motives in more groovy textures. The slower, mercurial middle episode of the piece presents musical impressions of more rapid, glitchy bird songs which are echoed in the electronics. A set of cascading melodies leads to trilling gestures in the winds accompanied by filtered woodpecker drumming, insect buzzes, and other noisiness. A stormy climax gives rise to an electronic interlude highlighting female and male duetting Great-Horned Owls. The electronic accompaniment is silent for the instrumental coda which takes up the Great-Horned Owl melodies over a series of lilting grooves. A rousing finale has the piece end as it began, with a fading unaltered soundscape recording.