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Jami Reimer first became interested in frogs because of her background in choirs. The link between the two is the joining of many voices into one.
“When I was in grad school, my sister Jillian was in grad school at the same time doing a much more ecological course of study,” she explained in an interview on Morning Light, “and she was telling me about these massive chorusing events... whereby biologists could connect through these species, their sound and through their voice.”
Reimer was fascinated by the concept of animals joining their voices together for amplification and communication, and now, Reimer has taken that idea and turned it into Soft tongues, described as a bio-acoustic opera that will be performed as part of the "Oscillations" concert at the Cluster Festival of New Music and Integrated Arts.
A key element of Soft tongues are the field recordings of frogs collected in the Brazilian rainforest. Reimer had no preconceptions of what the field recordings would be when she travelled to the Amphibian Natural History Lab at the University of Campinas in Brazil during her MFA studies but knew that they would be used for something.
“I'm a big fan of arts-based research,” says Reimer. “If art can be good, it’s because it comes from really good questions.”
One certainty that came to Reimer immediately was that she would be using the mating calls of the blacksmith tree frog, otherwise known as the “hammerfrog” in whatever iteration her project took. While out on a field recording session in the swamp one night, she encountered the frogs’ calls that filled the air around her.
“They fill out the whole frequency range,” says Reimer, noting the similarities between a choir of many voices and the frogs’ mating sounds. “The first one htat came in was this lke dep drumming, and I fully looked at my friend and I was like, ‘Is there like a drum circle nearby? This is going to get in the way of our recordings.’”
“No, that’s a frog. I’m in the water listening to an orchestra.”
While Reimer’s presentation of Soft tongues at the Cluster Festival will be a solo version (the full version features a human choir that she synthesizes with layering and recording when she performs alone), the piece will still convey the magic of these animals and the importance of preserving their habitat.
“We share this planet,” Reimer notes when asked about what she hopes Winnipeg audiences will take away from the production. “We are very quick to decimate the wetland habitats that frogs need. About 40% of all frog species on the planet are at risk of extinction. If we can have an experience where some of these sounds are made strange in a way, then we can bring that listening to the places we call home as well.”
“I think it’s calling us to attend our ears to a protest song that is ongoing, but it’s not only a protest. It’s also a celebration of life... singing amidst the trials of living in this world is also hopeful.”
The "Oscillations" event that Soft tongues is a part of also features Rayannah, Los Dias Florados and Carol-Ann Bohrn. The show takes place at the West End Cultural Centre with doors opening at 7:30 p.m. on June 6. Concertgoers can find more information on the Cluster Festival’s website.