Orcas honored at annual concert

Published 3:43 pm Tuesday, June 16, 2015

By Anna V. Smith

Journal reporter

What kind of music do orcas like?

It’s an impossible question to answer for certain, but one that Fred West of Seattle City’s Cantábile Choir has been entertaining for the last 14 years at the annual Orca Sing, a choral performance to honor the Southern Resident orcas at Lime Kiln State Park.

“It’s a symbolic way to bring our best culture to the whales, instead of just our pollution and our ship engines,” West says. “We’re bringing our songs that represent our composers through the ages, that represent many cultures.”

In past years the Choir has organized gospels, saxophone solos and string quartets for the killer whales. This year they’re planning on singing pieces from South America, South Africa and West Africa, which West describes as celebratory songs “affirming the beauty of nature and life, adapted for the orcas and the sea.”

The event will offer tours of the lighthouse in Lime Kiln State Park before and after the music. Jenny Atkinson, executive director of the Whale Museum, says that whales have often come by during the performance.

“It’s amazing that we have this opportunity to watch whales in the wild, almost in their living room,” Atkinson says.

Audience members also have the ability to listen to the whales by turning their FM radios to 88.1 or 88.3 to listen to the hydrophones that pick up the whales’ songs and communications in the ocean, also broadcast online at orcasound.net.

Atkinson says she hopes these events  will bring more attention to orcas, an endangered species, especially as June is Orca Awareness Month.

The Annual Orca Sing is June 20 at 6 p.m. with lighthouse tours offered before and after the performance. The event is free but a Discovery Pass is required to park at the State Park.