“Heartwood”: A Percussion Quartet

Composed by Jeff Berman, "Heartwood" is a meditation on the relationship between humans as music-makers, and wood as the primary natural resource for instrument making. Through a conversation between raw wooden instruments—tree stumps, 2 x 4s, and recycled wooden construction materials—"Heartwood" offers a musical window into watching this relationship unfold.

"Heartwood" takes its name from an early Buddhist text, Majjhima Nikaya 29, the “Mahasaropama Sutta” or “The Greater Discourse on the Simile of the Heartwood.” In folk mythology the tree is a perennial metaphor that binds humans to the search for the meaning of their existence. In this sutra, the Buddha addresses a group of disciples, and compares one’s journey to access the core of spirituality, with the utilitarian search for the heartwood of a tree. As the sutra maps the process through which one must go to reach the ‘heartwood,’ or final liberation, so too "Heartwood" maps the same journey through its music, materials, textures, and movements.

"Heartwood" was performed at Big Reuse by Jeff Berman, Robby Bowen, Catilin Cawley, and Chihiro Shibayama. The performance was filmed by Katie Sadler and Sara Laufer, edited by Jeff Berman, and photographed by A. Jesse Jiryu Davis.

Big Reuse facilitates recycling and composting programs throughout New York City. They reduce the environmental impact of the construction industry by recycling demolished building materials, which contribute nearly 7,000,000 tons of waste to landfills annually. Learn more about their work at bigreuse.org