Wendy Reid's Ambient Bird the eve Sat May 16

[MATT INGALLS]

Ambient Bird - Ohlone Park 2026

 

sfSOUND musicians join the bird ensemble 

in an outdoor performance of

Wendy Reid’s Ambient Bird-Ohlone Park  2026,

with Brenda Hutchinson’s Dailybell at sunset

Saturday, May 16 - 7:30pm 

Ohlone Park: 1601 Hearst Ave, Berkeley 94703 

Near North Berkeley Bart, with no formal seating

musicians:

Lulu, African Grey parrot

Wendy Reid, violin

Krys Bobrowski, gilsglas

Brenda Hutchinson, long tube

Aurora Josephson, voice

Ron Heglin, tuba

Kanoko Nishi, koto

David Samas, percussion

Diane Grubbe, flute

Tom Djll, trumpetJohn Ingle, saxophone

David Michalak, skatchbirds

Jacob Felix Heule, percussion

Dailybell,  everyone 

AMBIENT BIRD - OHLONE PARK 2026

Wendy Reid’s site-specific work, Ambient Bird-Ohlone Park 2026 is a 52-minute interspecies sonic landscape which reflects an eco-centric philosophy of connecting with all living creatures and the environment. The ensemble includes an African Grey parrot and experimental musicians working with the ambient sounds, specifically, the birds of Ohlone Park:  Cedar Waxwings, Lesser Goldfinches, Bewick's Wrens, Oak Titmice, Western Bluebirds, Anna's Hummingbirds, California Scrub-Jays, Dark-eyed Juncos, Stone Pigeons, and American Crows -all part of an event that is intended to bring everyone and everything together, and honor the park's indigenous inhabitants, the Ohlone People.

The structure of this work can be described as a musical process which attempts to reflect nature’s manner of operations: a spatially notated score of sonic fragments transcribed from bird-human interactions and a Native American chant is interpreted and performed by the musicians within the ambient environment of Ohlone Park. Contextual in nature, the work allows performers to act according to unpredictable conditions and variables which arise within the musical continuity. In performance, an attempt is made at a spontaneous unforced growing of sound and silence in which emphasis is placed on formation rather than pre-established form, as in the building and shaping of cell-like units in living processes. 

This site-specific piece, as with the first incantation,‘Ambient Bird 433’, pays homage to John Cage’s composition 4’33”(1952).

At sunset, following the performance, Brenda Hutchinson leads everyone in bell-ringing: created by composer and sound artist Brenda Hutchinson in 2008, Dailybell is an ongoing aspirational project based on the premise that something as inarguable as the movement of the Earth can be used as a point of unity and awareness among  groups of people who might otherwise find it impossible to agree.

About the site: Ohlone Park was originally the land of the Ohlone people, who consider their connection to the land to be sacred. It remains a place of cultural significance that people protect and recognize its history. It is the hope of many that one day it will be returned to its indigenous inhabitants.

Special Thanks: City of Berkeley-Shallon Allen, Thomas Horn-videographer, 

Phil Perkins-location audio engineer, Edward Morse-tech, Andrew Aldrich-photography, 

Matt Ingalls-sfSOUND, and the musicians of Ambient Bird-Ohlone Park 2026 

This performance is included in ‘Ambient Bird-Berkeley’ (2025-26), a project supported in part by a Civic Arts Grant from the City of Berkeley