Video 1:Meet Composer David Rothenberg: The NJIT Board of Overseers presented the third New Jersey Institute of Technology Excellence in Research Prize and Medal to best-selling author and acclaimed clarinetist

Composer and Author David Rothenberg has composed a new work for accordion, cello, guitar and pre-recorded great whale. Rothenberg specializes in combining instrumental music with sounds from nature. He is the author of many books on the subject including “Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound”   

Shawn Lawson and The Progression Ensemble will give the world premiere of David’s new work “And One Day We’ll Know Why Whales Sing” for Accordion, Cello, Guitar, and Pre-recorded Whale” at ShapeShifter Lab, 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn on Sunday June 10, 2018 at 8:15 PM. The musicians include Eric Despard – Guitar; Michael Gilbert Ronstadt – Cello; and Rocco Jerry – Accordion.

Excerpts from David Rothenberg’s website: ECM recording artist David Rothenberg has performed and recorded on clarinet with Pauline Oliveros, Peter Gabriel, Ray Phiri, Jan Bang, Scanner, Suzanne Vega, Elliot Sharp, Markus Reuter, and the Karnataka College of Percussion.

He has nineteen CDs out under his own name, including “One Dark Night I Left My Silent House” , a duet album with pianist Marilyn Crispell. Rothenberg is the author of “Why Birds Sing”, book and CD, published in seven languages. He is also the author of “Thousand Mile Song”, about making music with whales, and “Survival of the Beautiful”, about aesthetics in evolution. His book and CD, “Bug Music”, featuring the sounds of the entomological world, has been featured on Radiolab and in the New Yorker. His latest recordings are “Cicada Dream Band”, “Berlin” and “And Vex the Nightingale”.

Rothenberg is distinguished professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. More of his books and CDs can be found on Amazon, iTunes, Spotify and terranovamusic.net .)

In addition to the David Rothenberg world premiere, the concert will include new works by Christopher Cook, Eric Despard, Michael Dilthey, Gene Pritsker and Bjorn Bolstad Skjelbred and a new arrangement of “Lullaby” by Dan Cooper.

Rothenberg’s most recent book and CD, Thousand Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound, chronicles the rich, underwater universe of whale sound. To produce the new material, he traveled from Hawaii to Russia to play his bass clarinet while recording the sounds of whales in their native habitats. Thousand Mile Song (Basic Books) was named one of the ten best science and technology books for 2008 by Booklist on Line, a publication of the American Library Association.

Why Birds Sing (Basic Books, 2005) was Rothenberg’s first general interest book to examine bird song from the combined perspectives of science, music, and poetry and was the culmination of his interdisciplinary work since he began teaching at NJIT in 1992. Why Birds Sing has been published in the U.S., England, Australia, Italy, Germany, Spain, Korea, China, and Taiwan as both a book and compact disc.

Rothenberg’s first CD on ECM Records, with pianist Marilyn Crispell, One Dark Night I Left My Silent House came out in May 2010. The CD features him as a jazz clarinetist. Earlier in Rothenberg’s career, he edited The Book of Music and Nature (Wesleyan University Press, 2001), and Parliament of Minds (SUNY Press, 1999), interviews with leading philosophers in conjunction with a public broadcasting television series of the same name, of which he was a co-producer.

In 2008, Rothenberg received NJIT’s Excellence in Research Award for the College of Science and Liberal Arts. Rothenberg received his PhD from Boston University and his BA from Harvard University.

The NJIT Excellence in Research Prize and Medal is awarded for contributions that have enhanced the reputation of NJIT. At the event, the prize and medal winner delivers a lecture based on his record of accomplishment. The lecture is also available on NJIT’s iTUNESU.. The prize and medal winner must have been a member of the NJIT faculty for at least 5 years.

For further information on David Rothenberg: terranova@highlands.com