If you Google the phrase “wildlife DJ,” almost all of the hits on the first page will lead you to Ben Mirin. “That’s not real, girl,” my friend James says via text when I tell him about my latest subject. “Get receipts. That’s a line at a bar.”
But it is in fact a career Ben has developed himself, traveling to the far corners of the earth--India, Madagascar, Belize, Honduras, and countless other locales--to record animal sound he then mixes into music. The goal is to inspire conservation and expose audiences to nature that may not get to connect with it on a regular basis. He also beatboxes along with these recorded sounds and performs live. Ben is a National Geographic Explorer and educator as well. He hosted his own show on National Geographic Kids and Nat Geo WILD called “Wild Beats” and was the first artist-in-residence at the Bronx Zoo. He also just launched his own game with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology called “BeastBox” which allows you to create music with sounds from nature.
Today Ben is being interviewed by philosophy professor and jazz musician David Rothenberg for The Explorers Journal, the quarterly publication of The Explorers Club, a professional society dedicated to “the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore.” Ben received the organization’s 2017 Scott Pearlman Award to go to Honduras and record sounds of local frog species this upcoming spring.
We walk into the depths of Prospect Park this sunny morning, the sting of cold air on our faces. Even in the middle of Brooklyn, there are escapist qualities in birdwatching for Ben, especially if you can isolate the birdsong from, shall we say, ambulance song or car horn song or what have you (“anthropogenic sound” if you want to feel like a scientist). Finding a spot nestled in an expanse of trees, Ben and David chat amongst the fallen leaves, felled trees, the ambient birdsong that Ben can identify without hesitation.
After an hour or so, it turns bitter cold, the sun disappearing and wind blowing. The three of us leave the park, David departing while Ben and I head into the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library to warm up. Ben gets us chamomile teas and soon we thaw.
We talk about 9-to-5 jobs, which neither of us have and frankly don’t know if we ever want or should have. It reminds him of something he tries to impart to the children he educates so they never have to feel like being unusual is a negative: “I’m wired differently and that’s okay.”
He says this and my chest aches. How is it possible that now, as I am sitting in the Brooklyn Public Library at 29, he's said to me something I have been waiting my entire life to hear and I didn’t even know it? And if it affects me this way, I can only imagine how a roomful of children might feel.
Follow Ben on Instagram, where he posts animal recordings he’s made in the field along with other snaps from his life.
Follow Ben on Twitter.
Become a fan of Ben on Facebook.
Play BeastBox here.
Subscribe to Ben’s YouTube Channel here.
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
Subscribe to Miss Manhattan Hangs Out.
But it is in fact a career Ben has developed himself, traveling to the far corners of the earth--India, Madagascar, Belize, Honduras, and countless other locales--to record animal sound he then mixes into music. The goal is to inspire conservation and expose audiences to nature that may not get to connect with it on a regular basis. He also beatboxes along with these recorded sounds and performs live. Ben is a National Geographic Explorer and educator as well. He hosted his own show on National Geographic Kids and Nat Geo WILD called “Wild Beats” and was the first artist-in-residence at the Bronx Zoo. He also just launched his own game with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology called “BeastBox” which allows you to create music with sounds from nature.
Today Ben is being interviewed by philosophy professor and jazz musician David Rothenberg for The Explorers Journal, the quarterly publication of The Explorers Club, a professional society dedicated to “the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore.” Ben received the organization’s 2017 Scott Pearlman Award to go to Honduras and record sounds of local frog species this upcoming spring.
We walk into the depths of Prospect Park this sunny morning, the sting of cold air on our faces. Even in the middle of Brooklyn, there are escapist qualities in birdwatching for Ben, especially if you can isolate the birdsong from, shall we say, ambulance song or car horn song or what have you (“anthropogenic sound” if you want to feel like a scientist). Finding a spot nestled in an expanse of trees, Ben and David chat amongst the fallen leaves, felled trees, the ambient birdsong that Ben can identify without hesitation.
After an hour or so, it turns bitter cold, the sun disappearing and wind blowing. The three of us leave the park, David departing while Ben and I head into the Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library to warm up. Ben gets us chamomile teas and soon we thaw.
We talk about 9-to-5 jobs, which neither of us have and frankly don’t know if we ever want or should have. It reminds him of something he tries to impart to the children he educates so they never have to feel like being unusual is a negative: “I’m wired differently and that’s okay.”
He says this and my chest aches. How is it possible that now, as I am sitting in the Brooklyn Public Library at 29, he's said to me something I have been waiting my entire life to hear and I didn’t even know it? And if it affects me this way, I can only imagine how a roomful of children might feel.
Follow Ben on Instagram, where he posts animal recordings he’s made in the field along with other snaps from his life.
Follow Ben on Twitter.
Become a fan of Ben on Facebook.
Play BeastBox here.
Subscribe to Ben’s YouTube Channel here.
Follow me on Instagram and Twitter.
Subscribe to Miss Manhattan Hangs Out.
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