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Fish Music

Internationally renowned musician John-Andrew Wilhite ’09 teams up with marine scientists to help boost Norwegian cod population
Using sophisticated microphones, John Andrew “J.A.” Wilhite ’09 has been recording three-dimensional, spatial sound from the underwater home of "skrei," the migratory codfish native to Norway. Though only a few centimeters long, the cod's drum muscle produces an outsized, thumping bass tone in low frequency. Working closely with a team of other musicians and scientific researchers at the University of Agder and the Institute of Marine Research, the team is hoping that these recordings will illuminate the secrets of the cod’s mating rituals.
 
“Atlantic cod populations are down to the lowest levels ever,” says Wilhite. “This is an especially big problem in Norway, because Norwegian culture is synonymous with cod, and after oil, fish are the number two export for Norway. We have now proved that cod mating selection is determined by what kind of music the individuals make, which is a huge one. This means we can create real change by presenting this proof to policy-makers, and getting ordinances for things like noise pollution, which prevent successful cod mating. This is especially impactful in Norway where things like oil drilling and cod fishing happen in the same areas.”
 
Since 2018, Wilhite has been using these recordings not only to determine how and why the fish make “cod fish music,” but also to make internationally renowned art. His work has led him all around the country, and his recordings are being used for a permanent installation in the new Codfish museum in Kabelvåg. He and collaborator Bálint Laczkó created the performance "Torsketromming" that depicts the cod rituals set to music both inspired by and incorporating actual cod sounds. He has presented his performance artwork internationally in Sweden, Austria, Scotland, Finland, and Norway.
 
 
As an undergraduate at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, Wilhite studied with scholar and composer David Schiff and bassist Orin O'Brien, the New York Philharmonic’s first female musician. He completed master’s degrees in both double bass performance and composition from The Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH) and spent a few years performing and writing music across Europe, including for the Norwegian National Opera. He’s now starting a PhD program at NMH in “artistic research… a relatively new field that asks the question, ‘how can art contribute to knowledge production in ways that other subjects cannot.’”
 
He says that both his undergraduate time at Reed as well as his Trinity experience prepared him for the interdisciplinary aspects of his work. “It's no secret that Trinity is a great school for the arts, and I think that's because the school doesn't treat them as ‘extracurricular’ activities, but rather as worthy subjects in themselves, whether it's theater, ceramics, photography, or whatever it is,” he says. “IB Music was (and of course it was!) as rigorous as any other subject at Trinity, and Brian Rollins treated the material with respect and even reverence, whether it was a madrigal by Monteverdi or milonga from Montevideo.”
 
Wilhite says that the teachers were what made the difference for him during his time as a Trinity student. “Trinity teachers are interesting people, and they will take you seriously as an individual, while challenging you as a scholar,” he said reflecting on his theatre classes with Brian Phillips. “I'm not kidding when I say that the teachers at Trinity could be just as critical as the teachers at college, but that's a very, very good thing”
 
“I think that having teachers who cared about me early on led me to set a high standard, and to search for teachers who would hold me accountable,” he says. “And I think that it was this understanding desire to learn from the best that led me to music in my particular path.”
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