The Extinction Series
Ongoing · Musical obituary series · Soloists · chamber musicians · public-space performances
“The crucial factor in the life and death of species is the amount of suitable habitat left to them.”
— E.O. Wilson
THE EXTINCTION SERIES is an ongoing collection of musical obituaries: brief works written in memory of animals that have vanished from the earth. Begun in 2014, each piece bears a name and a date — the moment a species slipped out of the human record.
The project is, by design, unfinished. It cannot be completed in the composer’s lifetime.
Across each run, the instruments become fragile archives — bodies of wood, string, hammer, breath, pressure, and resonance carrying names forward, one at a time.
Some of these species disappeared centuries ago through hunting and extraction; others vanished within living memory through habitat loss, climate disruption, and the slow violence of environmental change. These works ask us to listen not only for what is present, but for what has already fallen silent.
Each piece is brief. Each name is spoken once. The music does not attempt to recreate these animals — it marks their absence, before the sound disappears too.
Runs
