"Fields" performed in Barcelona's "Festival Mixtur"

"Fields" takes place with two percussionists separated at a linear distance of 150 yards. There is a microphone placed at each performer. Four additional microphones partition the duo, whose distances are structured distinctly upon ratios of the harmonic series. These distances are sought after, as the piece is written specifically around these spacial arrangements, their spacial frequencies and their relationship to the speed of sound. 

Performed by Mark Knoop and Serge Vuille, program and performer details here

"There's no one here to help you"

David Bird prepares an immersive electronic score to the previously un-soundtracked 1999 horror film “The Blair Witch Project”, featuring contextual readings by Cole Hager, and a poignant percussive performance of Jessie Marino’s “Ritual I :: Commitment :: BiiM" by Ellery Trafford.

"Calling The Blair Witch Project a phenomenon is flirting with understatement. From the moment of its première at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival (where it screened as a midnight movie), Blair Witch was a full-steam word-of-mouth express, with people who’d just seen it grabbing those who hadn’t yet by their parkas and shaking them violently, insisting that they absolutely must. An innovative online marketing campaign—launched when the Internet was still a relatively new toy for the general public—followed, creating even more frantic wanna-see by making it appear as if the film were non-fiction. Found-footage horror, which had previously barely existed as a genre, became so popular that it’s still going strong 15 years later; there are movies in multiplexes right now that only exist because of The Blair Witch Project. Shot for an initial budget that’s been reported as less than $50,000, it grossed just shy of $250 million (closer to $350 million, adjusted for inflation), making it one of the most profitable films of all time."

"Fields" performed throughout London by the Riot Ensemble

"Fields" takes place with two percussionists separated at a linear distance of 150 yards. There is a microphone placed at each performer. Four additional microphones partition the duo, whose distances are structured distinctly upon ratios of the harmonic series. These distances are sought after, as the piece is written specifically around these spacial arrangements, their spacial frequencies and their relationship to the speed of sound.      learn more about the work here

"Atolls" - for Solo Piccolo and 29 Spatialized Piccolos

All tracks performed and recorded by Laura Cocks at CIRM in Nice, France. ATOLLS is for solo piccolo and twenty-nine spatialized piccolos. The 
auxiliary performers surround the soloist and the audience. The pitch content is derived from the 
twenty-nine most salient spectral components of a crash cymbal occurring (and analyzed) within 
the shrill range of Janet Leigh's infamous scream from Hitchcock’s Psycho. lauracocks.biz davidbird.tv

Laura Cocks and I spent January at CIRM in Nice putting together a beautiful multitrack recording of ATOLLS. Excited to share this incredible performance!

Drop - for String Octet and Strobe Lights (2015)

A new work for the JACK and MIVOS quartets,
A very stellar performance of “drop” for string octet and strobe lights

drop - for string octet and strobe lights (2015)
In the novel Agapē Agape, William Gaddis’ interpretation of late capitalism is grounded in the growing resemblance between art and commerce, both of which appeared to him to be thoroughly mechanized. If the juxtaposition of terms, Agapē Agape, suggests the “wholeness” of the prior, collapsing into the latter, then “Drop” explores this deepening gap; it also refers to the dramatic formal device employed in many genres of popular electronic dance music.

Performance of "pluck.divide.cut" by Chartreuse PLUS

An excellent performance of pluck.divide.cut by Chartreuse Plus at Clonick Hall in Oberlin, OH

David Bird's pluck.divide.cut, a deep-water exploration of humanity's fraught relationship with horseshoe crabs, ancient creatures whose blood we harvest for our health. Scored for string trio with bassoon, bass clarinet, and flute. Premiere performance of this version, as guest artists at Oberlin Conservatory's Winter Term Chamber Music Intensive, in Clonick Hall, 7 January 2015.

Each year over half a million American Horseshoe Crabs (Limulus polyphemus) are harvested to produce Limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL), a medically important product found in the crabs' blood, which is used to detect pathogenic bacteria. The FDA requires every drug they certify to be tested with LAL to ensure that intravenous drugs, vaccines, and medical devices are free of bacterial contamination that could damage patient health. As such, the copper-based and uniquely colored, “blue blood” of the horseshoe crab is in high demand; a quart of LAL typically costs around $15,000. Substantial efforts are put in place to harvest LAL and in these “blood harvests” the crabs are heavily bled — 30 percent or more of their blood is taken and approximately 20 to 30 percent of the crabs do not survive.