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. An additional four orchestras have 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. 

Composer Arlene Sierra acknowledges applause from the Orchestra Hall audience following the world premiere of Kiskadee, 19 October 2023 

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

Photos: E Lease and E Thornton

Score excerpt

Critical acclaim for Kiskadee:

Review: Illinois Philharmonic serves up high-stepping Gershwin and a Sierra premiere takes flight

The composer Arlene Sierra, born in Miami and resident in England, has concentrated her music on various nature phenomena, as with the Northeast wind in Aquilo and butterflies in her Nature Symphony. More recently Sierra has written music inspired by our featured friends—most notably her Bird Symphony, which was commissioned and premiered by the Utah Symphony in 2022.

Kiskadee is Sierra’s latest avian-inspired work and received its Chicago-area premiere by the IPO Saturday night. A consortium commission by the League of American Orchestras, this concise work uses a transcription of the title bird’s call as thematic material along with environmental sounds. The kiskadee is threatened by the competing song of the troupial but reasserts itself and emerges triumphant.

Sierra’s treatment of the kiskadee theme is no gently lilting birdsong... Emphatic and aggressive, the three-note motif is punched out in strident brass, piano and winds. The vying repeated-note troupial theme is first heard in a solo violin and the two themes collide and do battle before the kiskadee has the emphatic final word.

Kiskadee is a superbly crafted work and a compelling listen. Sierra packs a lot into [an eight]-minute span and her scoring is assured and stylish with an edgy brilliance to her writing for brass, winds and percussion.

Kirov and the IPO musicians gave this local debut first-class advocacy, with playing of impressive bite and precision, skillfully balanced and scrupulously prepared by Kirov.

- Lawrence A. Johnson, Chicago Classical Review

Pairs of premieres and showpieces provide enjoyable contrast with the Dallas Symphony

Kiskadee is the latest of several works by Sierra that incorporate transcriptions of bird song; in this case, the call of the titular bird provides a four-note motif that is one of many irregular, coloristic gestures derived from natural sounds in the kiskadee’s habitat. Following a raucous opening that introduced the kiskadee’s call, the piece unfolded as a complex soundscape consisting of shimmering strings and reiterated pitches in the winds and brass, all coordinated by the steady beat indicated by Luisi as he also cued distinct bird calls within the collage. The result was an effective and engaging suggestion of a teeming outdoor space.

- William McGinney, Texas Classical Review

Review: Two new pieces and two audience favorites from the Dallas Symphony

One of a series of Sierra’s works based on bird songs, Kiskadee makes much of the eponymous American flycatcher’s three-note call. Eight minutes long, its layered jabs and jerks of sounds expand into four- and five-note motifs, with chatters of winds and violins. Dissonant growls of horns and trombones supply timbral contrast and sonic underpinning, with percussion booms and tinkles.

- Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News

To watch the Detroit Symphony 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