Main content

A Symphony of Cicadas

Mark Burman heads to Illinois to encounter the sonic wonder of 'Cicadageddon' - the double emergence of periodical cicadas Brood XIX and XIII, not heard together for 221 years.

Mark Burman hears the sonic summer wonder of a cicada emergence.

What鈥檚 black and red and incredibly noisy?! Two broods of periodical cicadas (Brood XIII and Brood XIX) singing their love songs. Trillions emerged in the summer of 2024 in Northern Illinois, for the first time in 221 years. Mark Burman took his many microphones to Springfield's Lincoln Memorial Gardens to revel in this insect cacophony. Wandering through the woods he hears from excited school kids, poets and composers from as far afield as Japan and Ireland. All drawn to this sonic symphony of love and death!

Of the 3390 species of Cicada across the world just three are periodical. Only Magicicada populates North America. Emerging every 17 or 13 years after a life in darkness. Their overpowering song has long exercised our imaginations. The earliest written records by colonists referred to them as 鈥榣ocusts' - noticing that Native Americans feasted on them, but mostly the unsettling, enormous din of billions of insects whose courtship songs can be louder than a jumbo jet. Even now, in this man-made world of machines and noise, these little insects resonate their tymbals (males only) to produce intense songs of love. For Japanese bassist Quagero Imazawa, they speak to the oldest playback system of his land - singing insect cages as well as childhood memories of summers past. He jammed along with Springfield's Magicidadas as musical co-stars for his latest album. So slip your headphones on and listen in binaural sound to the trill of Cicada symphonies.

Music : Various tracks from the forthcoming '2245' by Quagero Imazawa. Cat Drugs - Haiku & 13 Year Itch by K-Tran from Cicada Summer by Special Passenger Records. 'The Cycle Begins Again' composed by Bryan Reude 7 performed by the Orkinstra.

Available now

30 minutes

Last on

Last Sunday 19:15

Broadcast

  • Last Sunday 19:15

Binaural sound

What is it and why does it matter?

Podcast