Concerto for Extinct Birds

Concerto for Extinct Birds assembles the only known audio recordings of all fully extinct bird species ever captured before their disappearance. Ten voices — separated by geography, history, and extinction itself — reappear within a circular multichannel sound installation structured as orchestral composition.

At the center of the work lies the Kaua‘i ʻŌʻō, whose final mating call continues unanswered after the extinction of its species. What was once communication persists as permanent delay: a call surviving beyond the possibility of response.

Neither archive nor reconstruction, the installation stages extinction as irreversible acoustic loss. Birdsong returns detached from habitat, ecosystem, and listener, transforming sound into trace, echo, and atmospheric remainder. The work asks what disappears when a voice vanishes forever — and what it means for technology to preserve the sound of a world it could not save.