In “Cetus: Life After Life,” composer Annie Lewandowski explores the temporal dimension of whale song in a whale/chimes duet. In Fall 2017, Lewandowski began meeting with acoustic biologist Katy Payne to listen to recordings and view spectrograms of humpback whale song Katy and Roger Payne recorded from 1969-1988 in Bermuda and Hawaii. The Paynes’ pioneering work identified musical patterning — through changes in pitch, duration, and rhythm — as male humpback whales within a local population mimic and develop each other’s song within a season and across decades. In the “Cetus” performance, sampled recordings of whale song will be broadcast from large speakers facing out from the top of McGraw Tower in duet with percussionist Sarah Hennies performing on the Cornell Chimes.

Annie Lewandowski (US), Katy Payne (US), Sarah Hennies (US)

Department of Music; Lab of Ornithology