Crows are thought to be among America’s most intelligent birds Some have learned to even read traffic lights! Their distinctive “CAW!” is a familiar sound across the country. These birds are a friendly bunch, and you can find groups (or murders) of crows flocking together year round.

Listen to a recording of their call here:

Los Angeles-based composer Jason Barabba processes his encounters through a personal artistic lens to create pieces that reflect his perception of the world around him. Works by a diverse range of authors including Ursula K. Le Guin, Tao Lin, Herman Melville, Christopher Durang, David Bartone, and Terry Pratchett have all inspired his compositional process. Le Guin has said of Barabba’s work, “Some composers use words as raw material. Like Schubert or Vaughan-Williams, Jason collaborates with them... the texture of the music and the tension in it are wonderfully effective; it’s spare and airy, but strong.” Learn more at his website.

When did you start composing music?
In-between my undergraduate degree in Latin American Studies, and my MFA in music composition.

Why did you pick this bird and instrument combination?
My mother is an artist, and has had a long-standing interest in the crow as a subject in her art. I have dedicated this piece to her.

What special thing/moment should people listen for in your piece?
I’ve chosen a text that is over 120 years old. In it, our expert has decided that he knows what the crows are saying with their different types of calls. It’s hard to gauge how accurate all that might be, but I found the idea of a crow dictionary to be pleasing. The order of movements in between the opening and closing movements is completely up to the singer. You will notice the use of Corvus americanus in the text. This is the scientific name for the American crow commonly used in the 19th century.

Luc Kleiner (b. 1991, Los Angeles) has shaped a pluralistic career in music as a performer, composer, arranger, and educator. Between singing with the LA Master Chorale and LA Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Luc travels to lend voice to new incarnations of antiquated musics such as the acclaimed Peter Sellars production of Lassus’ Lagrime di San Pietro. Since the cancellation or postponement of all in-person musical happenings, Luc has redirected focus to producing and polishing original experimental-pop music from a bedroom in Manhattan Beach, CA.

This pale flycatcher is common in the arid country of the west. It prefers to nest in holes in trees, but will often settle for other nesting sites. These birds are omnivores and they forage by flying out from a perch to hover and pick insects from foliage or perch on cactuses to feed on fruits.

Listen to a recording of their call here:

Christopher Adler is a composer, performer, improviser and avid birder, and Professor of Music at the University of San Diego. He is a foremost performer of traditional and new music for the khaen, a free-reed mouth organ from Laos and Northeast Thailand and a specialist in cross-cultural composition with the musical traditions of Thailand. Learn more at his website.

When did you start composing music?
I began composing music around the mid-1980s, first with MIDI sequencers and then in written notation as a young pianist and pipe organist.

Why did you pick this bird and instrument combination?
As I recall, I submitted a list of top three birds and top three instruments and was assigned the final selection. All the instruments I submitted were those for which I had not yet composed a solo piece. As a birder, I am very familiar with all the birds of our region and did not have a preference. Instead, I took it as a challenge to find how to musically convey the character of whichever bird I happened to be assigned.

What special thing/moment should people listen for in your piece?
I see the Ash-throated Flycatcher as a serene and confident bird, able to sit patiently before bursting into short flights to boldly snap a meal out of the air. So my piece departs from this idea of sitting gently in one place and then sallying out in broader and broader strokes. These are punctuated with brief quotations from the bird’s dawn song, as it sounds when slowed down about four times to reveal intricate melodic details in what sounds like short bursts of indecipherable chatter at normal speed.

Sean Barela has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Opera Santa Barbara, Monterey Symphony (among others)—having recently appeared as a soloist with the Dana Point Symphony and Huntington Beach Symphony. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree with a minor in Psychology from the University of Southern California, where he the recipient of a full academic scholarship, a Master of Music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree with a minor in Music Education from the Eastman School of Music. Dr. Barela currently works as a Music Education specialist for 360+ elementary students at a charter school. He can be reached on Facebook and Instagram.

With its ghostly appearance and rasping shrieks, the barn owl has attracted a lot of superstition. Farmers who find them in their barns consider them good luck, since these birds prey chiefly on mice and rats. These nocturnal birds are silent predators – their wings rarely make a sound when they flap.

Listen to a recording of their call here:

Pamela Madsen is a composer, performer, theorist and curator of new music. From massive immersive concert-length projects, solo works, chamber music to multi-media opera collaborations her work focuses on exploration of image, music, text and the environment. With a Ph.D. in Music Composition from UCSD, Mellon Foundation Award, Yale University, Post-Doctoral research at IRCAM, Paris, and Deep Listening Certificate with Pauline Oliveros, her works have been commissioned and premiered world-wide. Selected as an Alpert Award Panelist, Creative Capital artist “on the radar” with awards from National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, Meet the Composer, American Scandinavian Foundation, MacDowell Colony, UCross, Women’s International Studies Center, Santa Fe Fellowships, she is Director of the Annual New Music Festival at Cal State Fullerton where she is Professor of Music Composition. Learn more at her website.

When did you start composing music?
Age 8, First Composition was for a Badge for Junior Girl Scouts.

Why did you pick this bird and instrument combination?
There is a family of barn owls that came to nest in the tall pine tree/wall outside my home composing studio window, which is on the edge of the Laguna Coast Wilderness Preserve. The barn owls came to nest there when I was composing a work for bass-baritone Nicholas Isherwood from my Opera Luminosity—The Passions of Marie Curie: Pierre’s Dissertation on Crystals (2016). I chose to use the materials from this previous work, for this new work Owl Breath, for bass-clarinet, since it has a similar range as bass-baritone voice, and the capacity for extreme dynamics, extended techniques, based on air, breath, that emulate the sounds of the barn owl.

What special thing/moment should people listen for in your piece?
Barn owls are known for their ability for silent flight—clarinet is also known for being able to play niente—almost sliently, and brilliantly soar to explosive dynamic ranges instantly. People should listen to the energy embodied in the predator behavior of the barn owl in passages in the work emulating fast silent flight, preying stillness and explosive behavior of attack!

Clarinetist Brian Walsh is a musician who is interested in sound and communication, regardless of genre. He frequently performs with such diverse groups as Wild up, Brightwork New Music, gnarwhallaby, WasteLAnd music and many others. He loves making bird sounds. Learn more at his website.

The California Towhee can be found in Debs Park 365 days of the year. You’ll usually find these ground-feeders scratching for food using both their feet at the same time. They also may mate for life if they find the right partner. Babies can leave the nest as early as 8 days after birth, but will follow parents around for several weeks!

Listen to a recording of their call here:

Of Lithuanian heritage, composer Veronika Krausas was born in Australia, raised in Canada, and lives in Los Angeles. She has directed, composed for, and produced multi-media events that incorporate her works with dance, acrobatics, and video. Krausas is on faculty at the Thornton School of Music at USC. Learn more at her website.

When did you start composing music?
7 years old.

Why did you pick this bird and instrument combination?
I see and hear these cute towhees when walking about Lake Hollywood and environs. I love their distinctive repeated note. For such a small little bird, they've got a big personality with their song.

What special thing/moment should people listen for in your piece?
The repeated pitch in the violin (which is my ‘artistic’ interpretation rather than a direct transcription).

Xenia Deviatkina-Loh has performed with orchestras around Australia and New Zealand and has also been a recitalist in various venues across Australia, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition, she has been frequently aired live on 3MBS FM, ABC radio, Radio New Zealand, Shanghai People’s Radio Station Classical 94.7, KUSC, and Classical KING FM. In 2009, she was the winner of the Gisborne International Music Competition. Xenia was supported by the Tait Memorial Trust - The Thornton Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, Woolf Mernick, and Margot MacGibbon during her studies in London. She is supported by the Ian Potter Cultural Trust Fund, Friends of Strings Award, and Greenschlpoon, and the Edna and Yu Shan Han Foundation for her current studies at UCLA. Learn more at her website.

One of the hardier thrushes, Hermit Thrushes do most of their foraging on the ground, picking up insects from leaf-litter or soil. These little guys are omnivores, mainly feeding on insects or berries. Their song is a series of clear, musical phrases with a piping introductory note and a reedy tremolo.

Listen to a recording of their call here:

Brandon J. Rolle is a Los Angeles-based composer and conductor working in contemporary and experimental music(s). His interdisciplinary approach to composition incorporates psychoacoustics and computer programming in order to augment his sound worlds and amplify their affect. Rolle holds degrees in composition from Mills College (M.A.) and University of California, Santa Barbara (PhD).

When did you start composing music?
I had composed music throughout my undergraduate studies, but was primarily working as a jazz and classical guitarist. In that year after I graduated, though, I started writing more and more, and at some point kind of found myself working more as a composer than as a performer. It just felt natural and exciting to me, and the opportunity to meet and study with some incredible composers really ignited that passion for composing... the rest is history!

Why did you pick this bird and instrument combination?
The Hermit Thrush calls and songs are really incredible (and have inspired composers long before this project). In particular, the way their calls start with a held tone but then evolve into these amazing, sparkling harmonic echoes really resonated with me. That ability of the cello to similarly sustain tones as well as create shimmering harmonic content seemed like an interesting choice to me.

What special thing/moment should people listen for in your piece?
I chose not to mimic the literal call or song of the Hermit Thrush, but instead to expand on their “call and echo” structure. The opening introduces tones closely-related to the inflections and arpeggios of the call, but then uses the echos as a way to venture outwards, capturing the beauty and mystery of their music. Keep an ear out for one special moment when the cello sound finally (and rather dramatically) opens up, revealing a rich, resonant, and intimate re-visiting of the opening material.

Jennifer Bewerse is a cellist specializing in contemporary music described as “[drawing] from her instrument every possible sound short of a human voice.” As a result, she has premiered over 100 works, including Peter Ablinger’s WEISS / WEISSLICH 17k and Celeste Oram’s Sanz Cuer, and has worked with many composers including Laurence Crane, Chaya Czernowin, Jonathan Harvey, and Christian Wolff. She is currently the cellist of Autoduplicity, Diagenesis Duo, and Southland Ensemble. Learn more at her website.

The mockingbird’s ability to copy the sounds and songs of other birds has made it famous across the country. When running in the open, it might stop and partially spread its wings, flashing white wing patches. When they are nesting, Mockingbirds are territorial, fighting off cats and even humans who get too close.

Listen to a recording of their call here:

Vera Ivanova is a Russian-born composer currently based in Los Angeles and Orange County, where she teaches at Chapman University and The Colburn Academy for Young Artists. She graduated from the Moscow Special Central Music School, Moscow Conservatory, Guildhall School in London (M.M.), Eastman School (Ph.D.). Her works have been performed worldwide and released on five different CDs. She is a recipient of numerous scholarships and awards at 28th Bourges Electro-Acoustic Competition, 8th International Mozart Competition, International Contest of Acousmatic Compositions Métamorphoses 2004, ASCAP Morton Gould Award, 8th International Piano Competition at Orleans. Learn more at her website.

When did you start composing music?
I was 9 years old when I started composing.

Why did you pick this bird and instrument combination?
I picked khaen as an instrument, because it sounds similar to an amplified exotic bird, being a wind instrument, a kind of a mouth organ. I have chosen to write about the Northern Mocking bird because it is so good in mimicking other birds – literally any! And I wrote the piece by listening to a recording of a mimicker and mimicked it myself in my piece.

What special thing/moment should people listen for in your piece?
They should listen for a number of repetitions of each short motive - mocking birds are known for repeating each call they mimic at least 2 times or, typically more (3, 4, 6).

Christopher Adler is a composer, performer, improviser and avid birder, and Professor of Music at the University of San Diego. He is a foremost performer of traditional and new music for the khaen, a free-reed mouth organ from Laos and Northeast Thailand and a specialist in cross-cultural composition with the musical traditions of Thailand. Learn more at his website.

You’ll hear a red-shouldered hawk before you see it. Look up and you’ll see them circling around their nesting territory. Red-shouldered Hawks usually show pale crescents near their wingtips, where the sun shines through. When these birds see something delicious, they catch it by dropping directly onto it from the air.

Listen to a recording of their call here:

LA-based Japanese composer Kenji Oh (b.1981) moved to LA in 2010. He writes music colored with delicate harmony illustrating dynamic stories. Cat lover. Visit his SoundCloud for more.

When did you start composing music?
24 years ago when I was 15.

Why did you pick this bird and instrument combination?
I liked the sound of the bird’s call and I thought the viola would be a good choice to imitate it.

What special thing/moment should people listen for in your piece?
The piece starts imitating the bird’s call as a motif and develops its force as music. It serenely transforms back to the imitation at the end.

Performance note: the buzzing sound you hear is due to an extended technique that involves attaching a binder clip and paper clips to the bridge of the viola. Listen for the ambient rattling during the bowed sections of the piece.

Cassia Streb is an LA-based violist, composer and concert designer. She found that the process of performing and recording “Red Shouldered Hawk” was overall very inspiring and she can now hear the birds outside her studio through new ears. This is her second year performing as a part of Synchromy’s event in partnership with the Audubon center and she is very happy to be asked back. Learn more at her website.

Considered to be a highly intelligent bird, Ravens can learn to use other animals to find them food. For example, the Common Raven has been following people for centuries, hoping to snag a quick meal. These birds have become notorious for their creative problem solving and their ability to learn skills from each other. Common Ravens are strong copycats – they can mimic sounds including bird calls, drops of water, and even words! You can tell them apart from crows by their distinctive beards and larger size. They stay with one partner for their whole lives, so you will often see them in pairs rather than large groups.

Listen to a recording of their call here:

Violist and composer Diana Wade likes to make strange sounds, usually on the viola. In a recent performance of Berio’s Sequenza VI, Diana was praised for playing with “both athletic and operatic ferocity” and “throwing herself into tremolo passages with a physical force that shook her and a sonic one that practically shook the walls” (LA Times). In addition to recording for film and television, Diana regularly can be seen performing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Wild Up, and appearances on series such as Jacaranda, Tuesdays @ Monk Space, and Monday Evening Concerts. Learn more at her website.

When did you start composing music?
I started composing a few years ago, around the time I turned 30. It was something, as a performer, I almost felt like I wasn't allowed to do. I still feel bashful sometimes about calling myself a composer, but it's a thrilling new addition to my creative life.

Why did you pick this bird and instrument combination?
I knew I wanted to choose ravens for the focus of my piece because of the numerous cultural associations we have with them, from Poe’s “The Raven” to their appearance in Greek myths – often associated with Apollo, a god of prophecy. I wanted to stretch myself as a composer and write something for outside of the string world, and I love the crazy sounds oboes can make – including one that’s actually called crowing – and am so excited to explore the colors of the instrument.

What special thing/moment should people listen for in your piece?
This piece is called “Psychopomp.” A psychopomp is a being that ushers a person from death to the afterlife. Ravens are often depicted with psychopomps or as one on their own. After listening to the calls of ravens, I noticed a steady repetitive rhythmic quality to them. This lead me to listen to messages in Morse code. The raven (oboe) is trying to tell you a message – will you listen?

Theodosia Roussos is a Greek Cypriot American Soprano, Oboe/English Horn player, Improviser, Composer, and Lecturer internationally. She has performed with orchestras including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Philharmonic, Tucson Symphony and recorded oboe/English horn, voice and contributed original improvised melodies for the film The Last Black Man in San Francisco, oboe for Amazon Prime show Homecoming, vocals for Miranda July film Kajillionaire. Upcoming in 2021, Theodosia is looking forward to performing the premiere of her new opera Polymnia, commissioned by the UCLA Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture, headlining as the Soprano/Oboe soloist in Dots+Loops Nonstop Festival in Australia in 2021, as well as playing oboe for Spoleto Festival USA and Songfest in 2021. Visit her YouTube channel for more.

Nothing says romance like two mourning doves nestled together on a tall sycamore branch! These monogamous birds find a partner and mate for life – returning to each other each mating season. The mournful cooing of the Mourning Dove is one of our most familiar bird sounds. Considered one of America’s most common birds, you’ll find mourning doves abundant in open country and along roadsides – rarely ever in dense habitats. Check out these seed-eaters in any open area, even in your backyard.

Listen to a recording of their call here:

Jen Wang is a composer based in Los Angeles, working in acoustic and electro-acoustic media with a particular love for writing for voice. Her upcoming commissions include works for San Francisco chamber ensemble Earplay, soprano-cello duo Mazumal, and the UC Santa Cruz Wind Ensemble. She is currently executive director of the Los Angeles electroacoustic concert series People Inside Electronics, and she sings with the Pasadena Master Chorale and plays clawhammer banjo (very badly) on the side. Learn more at her website.

When did you start composing music?
I started writing songs for myself to perform when I was eight or nine years old. When I was fifteen, I made the transition from “sad guitar songs about my ex-boyfriends” to “sad chamber duos that were only occasionally about my ex-boyfriends”, which is apparently one of the gateways into classical composition.

Why did you pick this bird and instrument combination?
The mourning dove is a ubiquitous part of the soundscape where I live, in the San Gabriel Valley. It’s a beautiful call and also one that’s very easy to recognize (I think of it as an entry-level bird call, sort of like Orion’s Belt for people who don’t know constellations that well). I liked the idea of working with a sound that was so familiar to me, and to many of us living in Los Angeles.

What special thing/moment should people listen for in your piece?
About a minute from the end is my best impression of the mourning dove on double bass. The piece begins with a pulsating drone that gets tugged and distorted in various ways, and gradually the dove’s call emerges as melodic material, finally appearing in the open near the end. Before that emergence, though, listen also for all the different ways I try to get varied qualities of sound from the double bass: playing with different ways to place the bow, different amounts of pressure, etc.

Scott Worthington is a double bassist and composer based in Los Angeles. He has released three albums to critical acclaim as a performer-composer, including his 2015 album Prism, named one of The New Yorker’s top ten classical albums of the year. His music, described as “quietly gripping” by The Log Journal and “as bewitching as it is original” by Alex Ross, has been commissioned by the Library Foundation of Los Angeles, Loadbang, and numerous soloists. Learn more at his website.

Like its relative, the Northern Mockingbird, the California Thrasher incorporates imitations of other birds’ songs into its own song. This bird has a very limited diet, eating almost exclusively insects. They live in areas called “chaparral,” parts of California that are covered in shrubs and bushes that tend to burn during fire season. Because of this, thrashers are a dull grey-brown color, helping them blend in with soil, burn areas, and rocks, since they have few places to hide from predators after their habitats succumb to fires.

Listen to a recording of their call here:

Dante De Silva is a Los Angeles-based composer. He holds degrees from UCLA (Ph.D.), UC Santa Cruz (M.A.), and Humboldt State University (B.A.), and he is currently teaching at UCLA. Recent works have been premiered by soprano Lucy Fitz Gibbon, the CSU Bakersfield Concert Band, and pianist Ryan MacEvoy McCullough. His string quartet, Hungry, written for Lyris Quartet, is the 2019 winner of the American Prize (instrumental chamber music – larger ensembles). Learn more at his website.

When did you start composing music?
I wrote my first piece in my freshman year in college. It was called “Mayonnaise” for solo prepared piano – no joke.

Why did you pick this bird and instrument combination?
The flute is a fairly obvious choice to replicate birds sounds. Knowing that, I thought it would be an interesting challenge to see if I can not rely on the flute exclusively as the bird.

What special thing/moment should people listen for in your piece?
There are two birds represented in my piece. Listen for both.

Rachel Beetz is a Los Angeles based flutist whose playing is both “soulfully elegant” (Washington Post) and evokes the “roar of prehistoric animals” (San Diego Union Tribune). Rachel is passionate about contemporary music and creating supportive and collaborative environments for her community to make music. She is Co-Director of wasteLAnd and also half of Autoduplicity, a project with cellist Jennifer Bewerse. Learn more at her website.