Avian Encounters: Bird/Human Relations Session with Philip Miller | September 14, 4-5pm SAST

You are warmly invited to the sixth session in a new seminar series on Monday 14 September 4-5pm SAST

Avian Encounters: Bird/Human Relations

Convened by Isabel Hofmeyr and Sarah Nuttall

Syrinx / Larynx

Presented by :  Philip Miller

Please find zoom link here

In advance of this session, please listen to the three recordings attached

Composer Philip Miller has begun creating a song cycle which intertwines the human voice with the lost birdsongs of extinct and endangered species. Working with the rare recordings of birdsongs drawn from the archives of the Macaulay Library at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Miller explores how singers can learn these avian vocalisations; extending their sonic life and creating a living musical archive. The song cycle seeks through the power of the human voice to highlight the harsh and immediate reality facing the ever-increasing disappearance of bird species and their songs. This tragic loss is brought about by global warming, agricultural expansion, chemicals, deforestation, air and noise pollution, which disturbs flight pathways and migrations. In this talk, examples of Miller’s compositional process will be shared, presenting the raw materials which he has gathered. This includes spectrograms of the archival sound recordings; his own musical samples of how the bird songs have been transmuted into the human voice; and extracts from texts, poems and data which form part of the libretto.

Philip Miller is a South African composer and sound artist. His frequent collaborations with visual artists, choreographers and filmmakers have extended his musical boundaries into many different sound worlds and genres. Miller’s “Nkoli- a fierce and fabulous life” had its European premiere in June 2026 this year as part of the Theatre der Welt festival in Germany. Upcoming events will be his production of “Reuben T Caluza the B-Side” at Artscape Theatre in September 2026, Cape Town. www.philipmiller.co.za

Recordings attached are:

 The Dusky Seaside Sparrow, Snow White and Apollo 11
samples. MacCauley Library  Cornell University
and Joanna Dudley

Learning the song of the Kawai oo
with Joanna Dudley
Samples: MacCauley Library  Cornell University

 The Ukrainian Crane
with Joanna Dudley
samples: Youtube/ MacCauley Library  Cornell University

In an age of extinction, partial adaption and survival, what would a better understanding of the lives of birds afford us – and perhaps them?  Unlike humans, birds travel anywhere, sing in a manner no other animal can and hear sound at distances undetectable to us. They forge or disavow encounters with humans that suggest complex relationalities. How to bridge the bird/human divide, drawing on the strengths of the humanities?  Birds have been overfreighted with human meaning: as messengers of the gods, harbingers of the seasons, symbols of captivity and freedom, portentous flocks – not to mention the perspectives of the hunter, the cook, the meat-eater, the pet-owner, the ornithologist, the farmer, the birder. Yet, are there more flight-enabled perspectives* that shift us away those above? What is the birdness of birds - and how are they seen to embody their own lives? What might a history of the grey parrot tell us – about parrots and about us?  What do art works using bird acoustics reveal? How do birds redefine geographies of air, water and land? What can film and other media learn from avian perceptual worlds and modes of seeing and looking? How are bird migrations changing with climate change? This series approaches these and other avian-inflected questions with a particular interest in African and Indian-Ocean oriented archives and hemispheric media drawn from literature, science studies, climate sciences, migration studies, and visual and film studies.

*With thanks to Olga Petri and Michael Guida (Winged Worlds Common Spaces of Avian-Human Lives, 2023) for this phrase

Avian Encounters: Bird/Human Relations follows three previous highly subscribed Series, Heated Conversations; Breathing In: Air and Atmospheres; and Plant Lives: Critical Plant Humanities from the global South, convened by Isabel Hofmeyr and Sarah Nuttall