CalBG SOUNDwalk Project

Somewhere near the Majestic Oak (2025) is an immersive soundscape inspired by the California Botanic Garden. The piece traces a sonic journey from the entrance of the North SoCal garden to the quiet presence of the Majestic Oak, weaving together and transforming sounds encountered along the way. Passing airplanes, bird calls, and even the faint hum and mechanical noise of nearby industry are interlaced, creating a dialogue between the natural and the human-made. Through this musical exploration, the listener is invited to experience the shifting acoustic environment that unfolds across the garden’s landscape.

Christine Lee is an eclectic composer, a musical poet, a multi-cultural artist currently based in Southern California. Christine Lee’s music is described as “bold and futuristic” with “strong rumbling in the lower registers alternated with softer stretches ...with powerful electronic sounds that increases with great energy and dynamism...”(Sequenza 21). She composes for unlimited projects in concert music, film, game, visual media, and dance. Her music produces a surrealistic and ambient atmosphere while driven by high energy and rhythms with a mixture of electronics. As a professional, classically trained pianist and keyboardist, she also performs various styles of music such as rock, jazz, classical, electronic music, etc.

The North So. Cal Gardens are home to the Open Vessel sculpture, Forest Pavillion, Tongva Village, and Majestic Oak.

Christian Dubeau’s composition for the Central Mesa Gardens, titled “Echoes Beneath the Liquid Veil” (2025) is inspired by the unique water sounds in the area’s reflecting pond. The piece features processed, and unprocessed water sounds, many synthesizers, and is also inspired by the “Memories of Vanishing Things” sculpture.

Christian Dubeau is an L.A. based composer whose compositions have been heard at festivals such as SPLICE (2016; 2017), The Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival (2017) and at distinguished concert series such as UnSUNG (2016; 2017) and has been played by Brightwork new music, the Panic Duo, the What's Next Ensemble, members of the Grammy-nominated L.A. Percussion Quartet, among other renowned musicians and ensembles.

Christian is also an accomplished pianist and music teacher. As a pianist, he frequently performs his music and the music of other contemporary composers in public. He has organized and directed concerts and concert series whose purpose is to perform and promote new music. He has been an instructor at Musicians Institute since 2018, where he teaches a wide array of subjects such as composition for visual media, theory, music history, and orchestration.

The Central Mesa Gardens showcase Sage Gallery & Garden, Water Vase, Emily's Magical Reflecting Pond, Redwood Grove, CA Cultivar Garden, Memories of Vanishing Things Sculpture

My family have been frequent visitors to the California Botanical Gardens and to the many mountain trails around Claremont over the past 30 years, where I have recorded many bird calls. One of my favorite local birds is the California Thrasher, which is often hiding in the brush and so only identifiable through his distinctive songs. My son Ben and I have taken a California Thrasher recording and slowed it down to appreciate its melodically intricate modulations and electronically brought out its natural harmonies—rather different from those found on the piano. The austere wilderness of this region evokes many sentiments, but to us its distinctive birdsong soundscape creates a timeless stillness amid change.

Composer Bill Alves and his family live in Claremont, where he teaches at Harvey Mudd College and directs the HMC American Gamelan. His electronic and video works have been released on the albums The Terrain of Possibilities and Celestial Dance, and his chamber music and music for gamelan on Imbal-Imbalan, Mystic Canyon, and Guitars and Gamelan. He is co-director of MicroFest, the Southern California festival of microtonal music. His son Ben Alves is a producer and composer known for electronic music under the name Shipwrecked. Now, under the name Fogcatcher, he is taking that same dark, atmospheric sound and applying it to experimental rock.

The North Mesa Gardens feature the Native Designs Cut Flower Garden, Bird & Butterfly Garden, Oak Grove, Outdoor Classroom, Council Rings "Horseshoe" bench, and Intersection II Sculpture

another arcadia (2025) is a love letter to the deep desert. It’s partly inspired by Mort Garson’s cult classic 1976 Moog synthesizer album Plantasia, and the soundtrack to the 1997 adventure game Riven by Robyn Miller.

Isaac Io Schankler (they/them) is a composer, accordionist, and electronic musician based in southern California. Their music has been described as "beautiful, algorithmic, organic, dystopian" (I Care If You Listen) and “remarkable listening” (Sequenza21). They have collaborated with a variety of ensembles, including the Ray-Kallay Duo, Friction Quartet, C3LA, SPLICE Ensemble, Autoduplicity, Nouveau Classical Project, and the Los Angeles Percussion Quartet. Additionally, Schankler has written music for acclaimed video games like Ladykiller in a Bind and Analogue: A Hate Story. Schankler is artistic director of the concert series People Inside Electronics, and Associate Professor of Music at Cal Poly Pomona.

The Southwest CA Plant Communities feature Desert/Chaparral plants, Torrey Pines, New Coastal Sage Scrub Community, Joshua Tree Woodland, and Fan Palms

My composition is entitled “Toward the Junipers.” The CA Plant Communities zones are geographically larger than other zones closer to the botanical garden entrance, and, timing myself walking through the zone, I realized I could create a large structure that invited listeners to spend time moving gradually through this area. My favorite feature in this section of the garden were the junipers, with their beautiful dense green and wispy branches. I heard acoustic music walking through this section, and wished to write an instrumental acoustic guitar work aiming to capture the wispy-ness of these trees and directing them through the northeast corner of the park.

Described by the LA Times as “deceptively laid back in an LA way…inventive…unconventional,” Alexander Elliott Miller is a Southern California composer and guitarist whose primary instrument is a Gibson Les Paul. Many of Miller’s compositions feature the guitar as a solo instrument with electronic accompaniment or integrated in contemporary classical chamber ensembles. He is a dedicated educator, having had the opportunity to serve for over a decade on the faculty of California State University Long Beach, where he teaches all levels of composition, theory and musicianship at the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music, and at Chapman University. Miller holds degrees from USC, the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The East CA Plant Communities feature Bay Laurels, Valley Oaks, Conifer Country, Conservation Grove of Scrube Oaks, Baja CA plants (Boojum tree)