So this morning I was woken by the sound of birds singing. Well, that and garbage trucks. But the sweet chirps always signify the end of snowboarding season (I mean... winter). Coincidentally, this lecture and performance discusses just why birds sing... "Are the evolutionary functions of mate attraction and territory defense enough to explain why and what birds sing? Is it pure accident that bird song so resembles human music? Is it wishful thinking to imagine that birds sing because they enjoy it? Field biologist Don Kroodsma and musician/philosopher David Rothenberg will approach this question from two different sides. Kroodsma is a professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts and has studied birdsong for more than thirty years. He is the author of The Singing Life of Birds. Rothenberg is Professor of Philosophy at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and a composer and jazz clarinetist. He is the author of Why Birds Sing. Join the authors for a musical presentation and book signing."