3. Cicada Summer Song

The Essay celebrates the sheer musicality and noise of Earth’s loudest insect singers. 3. Cicada Summer Song.

Cicadas are the heavy metal section of the insect world. Billions can make as much noise as a jumbo jet with their vibrating tymbals. Emerging from the warming earth to shed their skins and sing their love songs all summer long. Celebrated by the ancients of China, Japan, Greece and the Maori of New Zealand. In the hot dawn of a Bangalore forest, engineer Rakesh Khanna captures a Cicada symphony triggered by the sun's rays. Poet and architect Phoebe Giannisi delves into the myths, poetry and love of cicada song, the Tettix of ancient Greece. In 21st-century New Zealand, bio-acoustician Julia Kaspar discovered a cupboard of earthly delights at the Tepapa Museum in Wellington. The cicada recordings of Charles Fleming, who, in the 1960s, enlisted his entire family & islanders in an early version of citizen science. Identifying and recording an extraordinary range of song that doubled New Zealand's species count.

Kithara Performance by Michael Levy.
Raga- Lalit Dawn Shenai performed by Bismillah Khan from the Coates Indian Music Collection
Double Syrinx - CALLISTA by Yannis Pantazis courtesy of the Seiklo Museum of Ancient Music
Charles Fleming Cicada recordings courtesy of Tepapa Museum.
https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/topic/11106
Additional cicada recordings courtesy of Cicada Song EU
https://www.cicadasong.eu/

As told to series producer Mark Burman
Engineer: Duncan Thornley
A Storyscape production for Radio 3