Trever Hagen & Josh Berg: Terminal Habitat Collapse
A Quadraphonic sound experience

Copresented by Liquid Music and Northrop
Part of
Northrop Open House
Thu, Sep 12, 2024, 4:30–5:00 pm
Northrop Rehearsal Studio
Free and open to the public

Terminal Habitat Collapse, created by composer-performer-writer Trever Hagen and producer and engineer Josh Berg, sonically narrates the Anthropocene. From bucolic beginnings to a poisoned present and into a disparate future of engineered destruction, the three-act composition presents an immersive soundscape of ecological change. A culmination of a Northrop x Liquid Music artist residency, the piece will be performed in quadraphonic sound, each act representing an epoch of this story, an entropic journey from melody to mechanical rhythms driving into a startling finale. Featuring live performance and electronic mixing, this work-in-development showing creates a multisensorial environment that activates a collective psycho-somatic response to the complete collapse of human habitat by renovating the aesthetic framework of pastoralism and escalating the rhetoric of ecological change.

Trever Hagen (trumpet, composition, performance) has collaborated with a range of musicians and ensembles from Bon Iver to Mouse on Mars. As well, Hagen holds a Grammy nomination, a PhD and is an Oxford Press author. He has given talks and masterclasses on sound, music, noise and trumpet at universities and conferences in the US, Europe and Asia.

Josh Berg (soundscape, spatialization, unseen performance) is a Grammy award winning audio engineer and producer with a knack for wrangling large scale productions and hybrid creation/performance/recording situations. He has worked as Technical Audio Director for artists and collectives such as PEOPLE, Mac Miller, Kanye West, and Sunday Service.