Since 2018, I have created music, photography, video and textile art inspired by and in collaboration with Bombyx mori, the domestic silk moth. I have performed these pieces at the New Music Gathering and Performance Works NorthWest in Portland, Oregon, and my videos were programmed in the IF Festival in Guelph, Canada, the 2024 Sonorities Festival in Belfast, Northern Ireland and SoundBox 4 – 7 in Corvallis, Oregon.
Renowned oboist Nicholas Daniel has performed Silkys at Sound Scotland in Aberdeen, Scotland, Windhoek Festival at the Trossingen Musikhochschule, Germany. I’ve also won support from the Regional Arts & Culture Council of Portland, OR in 2022 and 2023.
Scroll down to see images and video of my work with silk worm moths. I’m seeking partners, both individuals and organizations, to present new silk moth works to audiences around Oregon and beyond, please contact me.
My personal journey with Bombyx mori started because of the people around me.
A neighbor first introduced me to Bombyx mori and gave me some worms to raise on my own. My husband suggested creating new music with them as we listened to them eating mulberry leaves. My dear friend Juniana Lanning offered her collaborative skills to two new pieces. I took those invitations further by continuing to explore on my own, embracing a DIY approach to creating photography, textile, and video, all mediums that were new to me.
And the Bombyx mori themselves continue to inspire me. My hands-on experience has given me an intimate understanding—I’ve seen the incredible transformation that happens during their metamorphosis, the almost alien appearance of the mature moths, and the paradoxical delicacy and toughness of the silk cocoons they produce. I’m excited to share what I’ve learned with audiences.
Working with Bombyx mori has revealed a new way to focus my skills and experience as a classical oboe player.
Throughout this journey, it’s been important to me to reveal the beauty of silkmoths without the difficulty of a science lecture or the stuffiness of “high art” abstraction. This project is an ongoing, flexible exploration and interaction with Bombyx mori, that will continue to take shape in concert halls and unconventional music spaces, as well as art galleries, museums, and any other space where I can include audiences in this discovery process.
Silkys (2020) for oboe and field recordings
Catherine Lee (oboe, field recordings and images) + Juniana Lanning (sound manipulation)
From album Remote Together
NOMINEE CLASSICAL ALBUM OF THE YEAR (SOLO ARTIST) |
ALBUM CLASSIQUE DE L’ANNÉE (SOLO) 2022 JUNO AWARDS
https://redshiftrecords.org/releases/tk489/
https://redshiftmusicsociety.bandcamp.com/album/remote-together
http://www.catherinemlee.com/
Silkys (2020) for oboe and field recordings is a collaboration between Catherine Lee and Juniana Lanning. In Silkys, a blended sound world is created by exploring sounds and movements of the bombyx more (domestic silkworm moth) that highlights the beautiful, unexpected and often overlooked aspects of the organism through its developmental stages and eventual metamorphosis into an adult silkworm moth. Originally conceived as a live performance, Silkys evolved into a fixed media work from Lee and Lanning’s respective isolations during Covid -19. Just as the Bombyx mori cocoons and transforms, so too has our existence and work changed during this time of seclusion.Score available. Please contact me for details.
Interview with Catherine Lee by oboist Nicholas Daniel for Sound Scotland Festival
I talked with Nicholas Daniel, one of the world’s foremost oboe players, about how I composed Silkys ahead of his performance at the Sound Scotland Festival in November 2022.
Shedding Skin (2021): An interspecies improvisation with the Bombyx mori
Catherine Lee, oboe d’amore and electronics by the Scuffed Computer Improviser (SCI), programmed by Taylor Brook. Juniana Lanning, video.
Shedding Skin was recorded live on July 3rd, 2021. I recorded this piece using a single microphone placed directly in the box with the silkworms. This microphone captured both the constant drone-like sound of the silkworms voraciously eating mulberry leaves and my improvisation on oboe d’amore in response to them. These sounds were sent directly into the Scuffed Computer Improviser (SCI), programmed by Taylor Brook, which listens, learns, and improvises with the sounds that it has heard. As the software begins to produce sound, I respond, guided by the experience of the silkworms growing and shedding their skins during their instar stages.
Flutterings (excerpt): an interspecies collaboration with Bombyx mori
Catherine Lee, oboe and electronics by the Scuffed Computer Improviser (SCI), programmed by Taylor Brook.
I recommend listening with headphones for full effect!
Recorded Live 2022 (Portland, Oregon)
Photos and Video by Catherine Lee
I recorded Flutterings using a single microphone placed directly in the box with the adult silkworm moths. This microphone captured both the buzzing of the male Bombyx mori moth wings and my improvisation on oboe in response to them. These sounds were sent directly into the Scuffed Computer Improviser (SCI), programmed by Taylor Brook, which listens, learns, and improvises with the sounds that it has heard, in a conversation with me and the worms. Throughout, I was guided by the experience of the male silk moths buzzing their wings. The photos in the video were taken through different types of microscopes, they show perspectives and aspects of the silkworm moth that aren’t visible to the casual observer.