Pigeon Whistles is the title given to an expansive body of work which encompasses

ethnomusicological research, musical performance, instrument design and construction, sound curation, storytelling and a series of encounters and personal relationships.

As Embedded Composer in Residence at the Pitt Rivers Museum & Oxford Contemporary Music it has been my remit to respond to the collections and objects housed at the museum through my work. The unique typological display of the museum’s artefacts creates an unprecedented palette of disparate solutions to shared cross-cultural concerns. By its very nature, this impresses the importance of wider social and cultural contexts for musical activities; music and human action/ interaction are inseparable. Understanding the term ‘composition’ in the sense of ‘the process of creating a new musical work,’ it becomes impossible to separate these wider contexts from the music itself. It is the Pigeon Whistle project in its entirety that constitutes the work of the composer, and as such, in its entirety, the project is considered to be ‘the composition.’ Pigeon Whistles was developed under the Embedded Residency Programme throughout 2013.

It was premiered within Oxford Contemporary Music’s Audible Forces exhibition, on Hove Beach as part of the Brighton International Festival in May 2013. It was subsequently presented at a further six arts festivals across the UK.

It was a collaboration with Pigeon Fancier “Pigeon Pete” Petrovic, it received the George Butterworth Prize for composition, and was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 documentary.

A second phase of the project included a PRSF Grant for creating 3D Printed Pigeon Whistles.

Nathaniel’s handmade and 3D printed whistles are included in the permanent collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, and are on continued rotational display as part of an exhibit on the use of pigeon whistles worldwide, also curated by Mann.

The guardian: www.theguardian.com /music/2014/aug/22/pigeon-whistles-the-closest-thing-to-heaven

BBC radio programme: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p04t6k7q

Download Libretto Score PDF: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mRYFd3UfBfVtZB6vMPGD3tvYfktsvi3r/view?usp=sharing