"Orchard Chorus" is a multi-species chorus by Kalli Anderson composed of field recordings made in a wild-grafted apple orchard outside of Hudson, NY in June 2024 along with archival recordings of songs from the Community Library of Voice and Sound. The week of the summer solstice in June, community members gathered for a durational deep listening event in an apple orchard. Participants spent several minutes listening and then (after a child shook a tambourine), they were invited to make sounds and motions inspired by the sounds they had tuned into in the orchard. Recordings from this session, along with contact microphone recordings from the soil beneath the trees and archival recordings of songs from the area were combined to create the final chorus in several voices. The chorus moves from the ground up: from the liquid, bugs and organisms in the soil beneath the trees, to the grasses, the trees, leaves in the wind, to the human bodies, breath and voices gathered on the ground in the grass, up to the birds in the sky and then a final layer of the chorus—the sounds of the voices, bodies and rhythms of our individual memories and reminiscences as well as the collective memory of the community and the land as represented by the archival recordings.

"Orchard Chorus" premiered in the same orchard in winter 2025 in a ceremony inspired by the tradition of wassailing, in which apple trees are honored and serenaded to encourage them to awaken from their winter slumber and produce another bountiful crop.

Additional field recordings courtesy of Debbie Blicher and Suzanne Snider.

Original archival recordings from the Community Library of Voice and Sound:
Ngounga Badila recorded by LJ Amsterdam
Drumming by Kate Dechard recorded by Alicia Aroche
Sondra Loring playing the harmonium and leading attendees in song at Sadhana Center for Yoga and Meditation recorded by Emma Rose Brown
Jabin (on behalf of Grandma) Ahmed recorded by Suzanne Schulz

Oral History Summer School’s Archive Remix is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Special thanks to Nika Carlson, Audrey Evans, Julia Shield, Ben Ezinga, Suzanne Snider, Emma Brown, Annie Reynolds, and Zack Finkelstein.

Sounds, songs, and radio art from a variety of contributors. Tune in for something you've never heard before with familiar classics and transmission art mixed in.