Serpentine Sibyls: Opening with Shakuhachi Flute Performance

Join us for the opening celebration of Serpentine Sibyls, the new public art installation by Daniel Rothbart. The program will feature Jeffrey Lependorf, a master player of the shakuhachi (traditional Japanese bamboo flute) will perform an improvised musical meditation. For approximately 40 minutes, he will blend traditional Zen meditation and avant-garde musical techniques and traditions in musical response to three of Rothbart’s floating sculptural installations.

When: July 11 | 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Where: The Pond (between P3 and P4) (View Directions and Site Map)

Admission: Tiered ticketing/pay what you wish:  (Registration Required)

• $0 

• $5  

• $10 (suggested) 

• $15 

• $20 

Biography  

Jeffrey Lependorf, a composer, musician, and visual artist, also serves as Executive Director of the John Cage Trust and directs the Art Omi: Music International Musicians Residency, a collaborative music-making program he created. He received a doctorate and masters in music composition from Columbia University and his undergraduate degree from Oberlin Conservatory. He is additionally a certified master of the shakuhachi, a traditional Japanese bamboo flute. He received the venerable honorific name “Kôkū” (“empty nothingness”) from Kinko shakuhachi master Yoshinobu Taniguchi. He has performed, and his music has been performed, around the globe—literally, in fact: a recording of his “Night Pond” for solo shakuhachi was launched into space when the shuttle Atlantis took off on May 15, 1997, and remained for a year aboard the Russian space station Mir. He has received numerous awards and honors, and his “Masterpieces of Western Music” audio-course is available through Barnes & Noble’s “Portable Professor” series as well as for download through Audible.com.  jeffreylependorf.com for more information.  

About Serpentine Sibyls 

The installation takes its title from the Sibyls—female prophetesses and oracles consulted in times of crisis. In an era marked by floods, heat waves, and wildfires, their presence resonates anew, reflecting the growing precarity of human life amid climate change and environmental loss. Rothbart’s sculptures evoke aquatic organisms and botanical forms from a distant past, conjuring life forms that feel at once primordial and speculative, alien yet strangely familiar. Rooted in deep history while gesturing toward an uncertain future, the works occupy a threshold between memory and prophecy. Situated within Snug Harbor’s historic landscape—a former refuge for sailors—the installation becomes a space for contemplation on where humanity has been and where it may be headed. 

Once set afloat, Rothbart’s sculptures are animated by wind and water. Through a visual language of structure, light, buoyancy, and motion, they transform perceptions of the surrounding environment.  

Snug Harbor visual arts programming is made possible through generous support from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation.