Lisa Schonberg

Lisa Schonberg is a composer, percussionist, field recordist, writer, naturalist, environmental artist, and teacher who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her work focuses on the intersection of ecology and art, and she uses writing, field recording, and music composition to document specific habitats and ecosystems in order to bring attention to endangered species, habitat loss, and other environmental issues. She has an academic and professional background in environmental sciences and entomology, and has studied and performed as a percussionist for most of her life. Among her many projects, she has studied ant acoustics, written percussion compositions in response to logging in Mount Hood National Forest, and written a book and new music in response to endangered bee habitats in Hawaii. Lisa’s place-based compositions are performed by her percussion and noise ensemble Secret Drum Band. She co-directs the artist collective Environmental Impact Statement, which asks artists to respond to development on public lands and interjects artist work into environmental policy-making. She is the author of The DIY Guide to Drums, The Hylaeus Project: A Documentation of the Endangered Native Bees of Hawaii, and Fieldguided, a series of books on insects and their habitats.