Kiskadee was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. It was first performed by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Kevin John Edusei conductor, at Orchestra Hall, Detroit on October 19th 2023.

Composer Arlene Sierra acknowledges applause from the Orchestra Hall audience following the world premiere of Kiskadee, 19 October 2023 Photos: E Lease and E Thornton

Score excerpt

To watch the DSO's livestream performance, click here

Programme Note:

Kiskadee is the most recent of Arlene Sierra’s works based on bird song, following directly from Bird Symphony (2021) commissioned by the Utah Symphony and Birds and Insects, Book Three (2023) commissioned by the Barbican Centre, London for pianist Sarah Cahill. Part of a larger series of pieces based on ideas from the natural world including Butterfly House (2022), Nature Symphony (2017), Urban Birds (2014), Butterflies Remember a Mountain (2013), and Colmena (2008) the mechanics and processes of nature are the basis for Sierra’s compositional approach, rather than offering a simple reflection or meditation. In Kiskadee this technical focus employs the composer’s transcriptions from field recordings as structural building blocks integral to the form of the overall work.

Kiskadees are described in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology database as “boisterous in both attitude and color: a black bandit’s mask, a yellow belly, and flashes of warm reddish- brown when they fly. [They] sit out in the open and attract attention with incessant kis- ka-dee calls and sallying flights.” The work employs a transcription of the kiskadee’s call as well as transcriptions of sounds from its environment. Later, the call of another bird, the troupial, supplants the kiskadee’s – mirroring the behavior of territorial overtaking that occurs in the wild. The kiskadee call later reasserts itself with renewed power, prevailing with its characteristic boisterousness.

Kiskadee was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation for a world premiere with the Detroit Symphony, Kevin John Edusei, conductor.

To order scores and/or hire materials for Kiskadee, please click here 

An additional four orchestras will perform the work through the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons: the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, part of a 30-orchestra consortium performing works by women composers commissioned by the League of American Orchestras with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. See the performances page on this site for more details.

Composer Arlene Sierra with conductor Kevin John Edusei backstage at Orchestra Hall