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Rothenberg At Knitting Factory: May 14

Improvising is something that comes naturally to David Rothenberg http://www.njit.edu/Directory/Academic/HUM/Faculty/pictures/rothenberg.html , whether in the classroom or on stage.

"I'm an improvising musician," said Rothenberg, an associate professor of philosophy at NJIT, who will be performing - or teaching as he prefers to refer to it - Monday, May 14, 8 p.m., at the Knitting Factory, 79 Leonard St., New York, N.Y. "I like that aspect of class. You can plan something - what you're going to do - and it might not work out. If you teach the way I do, you want people to talk."

During the performance, a unique gathering of creative minds committed to saving the Earth in exciting, positive ways may read or speak, activists will inspire and musicians will perform.

Hi-energy, spontaneous world eclectic trance landscapes, never new age, organic and exciting, Rothenberg has made five CD-ROMs with the likes of Glen Velez, Hamid Drake, and Amit Chatterjee.

His CD-ROMs, on which, Rothenberg plays everything from a clarinet to a double flute, show how environmental issues are cultural matters, not only science or policy concerns.

"It's much easier for me to perform music than to speak," said Rothenberg, who, for the past two decade has been teaching environmental ethics, the philosophy of technology, and literature and nature in society. "When you talk, people can criticize you, they will ask you questions, and they'll debate what you say. But if you do something like music, the debate is much more distant."

Musically, Rothenberg tries to blend the indigenous energy of the world's primal music with the exploratory spirit of improvisation. Some of these same characteristics can be found in the classroom.

"I don't really want to lecture," said Rothenberg. "I like to get people involved. You never know what they are going to be interested in. They pick up different things and you respond to them."

At a young age, Rothenberg was first introduced to music, but he was not comfortable with the idea of being solely a musician.

"I found I was more interested in music; the whole world of people and a way of communicating directly," said Rothenberg. "But, at the same time, I never wanted to just do music because I was interested in the problems of the world. It seemed like something should be done about them."

What he has since done is become an advocate for nature, lecturing regularly at universities on deep ecology, working as a consultant for both BBC and CNN television and in Germany for the for the World's Fair 2000, and writing books.

In his latest work, The Book of Music and Nature , an innovative book and CD-ROM, is the first anthology published on the subject of music and nature. Lush and evocative, yoking together the simplicities and complexities of the world of natural sound and music inspired by it, this collection includes essays, illustrations and plenty of sounds and music.

"This book considers the many ways music can engage and define nature," said Rothenberg, founder and editor of "Terra Nova: Nature and Culture," a literary and artistic quarterly that looks at the cultural possibilities of environmentalism. "Music here becomes a form of knowledge, if you will, that links us more closely to the reverberations of the surrounding world."

With his students, Rothenberg stresses that technology is better if those who develop it are also able to criticize it. This criticism, he says, is strongest if it comes from within - the engineers themselves - and is then compatible with believing and improving the progress of technology.

"Many students come in with the idea that someone made them take this course," said Rothenberg, speaking of his introduction to humanities class. "If you can convince even one person that it really matters, then you've done something.

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