score for trees is an interdisciplinary composition that translates the physical structures and growth patterns of New York City trees into live performance. 

Using photogrammetry, Maria Takeuchi captures the three dimensional growth patterns of a single tree in Prospect Park, Brooklyn (40.6670809, -73.9694442). Each point in this spatial data is translated into shifts in frequency and textural abstraction, becoming the raw material for a graphic score. Branch structures become notational shapes that inspire sound texture and frequency, estimated growth year duration becomes the piece’s compositional time structure, and branch thickness informs tonal choices in the instrumentation.

The tree at the center of the piece has its own story. Over months of observation, several of its large branches came down in a storm, a quiet reminder of impermanence and of how quickly what takes decades to grow can change in a moment. To notate a growing tree is to notate something already in the process of decaying, its growth and entropy in constant, inseparable transformation.

Rooted in the philosophy of ancient Japanese gagaku, music composed for and inspired by nature, score for trees creates an abstract translation between tree ecology and sound.

The graphic notation is composed by Maria Takeuchi, who invited a group of collaborators to interpret the score and bring it into sound together. Nava Dunkelman performs percussion, Henry Fraser contrabass, rocío sánchez cello, and che ali violin, each artist reading the score’s shapes and durations through their own instrument and sensibility. Takeuchi performs electronics and generative visuals, drawing the ensemble’s interpretations into a shared, evolving image of the tree.

This project is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) through the Support for Artists Grant.