Monarch butterflies' moonlight symphony

Cities and Memory - remixing the world

"I fell in love with the sound of the monarch butterflies – their beating wings – the delicacy and the strength - the very particular frequencies they sound at, the way in which the remarkable field recording allows us to hear individual beating wings, and the potential to both highlight this and to also create a layering thrum.
"I read about the monarchs’ extraordinary migratory journey to ‘rest’ in the central highlands of Mexico over winter. How like so very many migrants, many simply do not make their destination. Many fall in their great compelling movement across continents, or die at their final destination, exhausted. They sacrifice for the greater populations’ need to survive.
"'With every step, the number of dead or drowsy butterflies resting on the forest floor multiplies. Their wings, thin as parchment paper, are a deep orange with black veins and white spots along the edges.' https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/latin-america-butterfly-monarch-migration
"I considered how I might create a soundscape for these wings to travel through. I played and resampled many percussion instruments to create nature sounds – rain, air, water, earth, stars, birds, and I recorded and sampled double bass and bass clarinet as instrumental flutters. I also recorded and resampled excerpts of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata – creating an elegy and an enduring pulse – a sonic impulse, in honour of all creatures’ flights from increasingly inhospitable lands and climates in search of safety and life."
Monarch butterflies reimagined by Elissa Goodrich.
Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration.
For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration
IMAGE: Channel City Camera Club from Santa Barbara, US, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons