Seven Hummingbirds of the Mindo Valley, Ecuador for violin and percussion is a series of seven miniatures inspired by seven species of hummingbird that my wife Laura and I observed and interacted with in Mindo, Ecuador in January 2024. 

I have always loved hummingbirds. In the first grade my class was given the assignment to draw our favourite animals, and as a six year old I picked the black panther and the hummingbird. 

When Laura and I visited South America in January 2024, we planned to visit Mindo in Ecuador, which is well-known for bird watching. We jumped at the chance to go to the “Punto Ornitológico Mindo”, a birding observation deck in the “cloud forest” where it is possible to see hummingbirds. Nothing could have prepared us for the absolutely mind-bending experience we had there. We saw hundreds, if not thousands, of hummingbirds, of all different species. More to the point, not only are there that many hummingbirds, but it is possible to observe and interact with them extremely up close. The birds are used to humans and the “Punto Ornitológico” provided us with nectar to feed them from bottle caps and cut flowers right from our hands.

We spent most of an afternoon and the next morning there. I was completely awe-struck, my six year-old self would have been elated. The hummingbirds literally took my breath away — a rare experience. Over the course of several hours of close observation, I started to recognize the different species, their characteristic appearances and behaviours. Some were confident, some were shy; some wanted to perch, while others preferred constant motion; some were aggressive towards the other birds, some were more docile. All were absolutely mysterious. 

The entire time we were there, I took videos of the hummingbirds on my smartphone. When we returned from our trip, I pored over the videos, identified the seven species of hummingbird, isolated the best footage, and made video edits for each bird. I decided to explore a new (to me) creative process for this piece, namely, to compose the music "to picture" for each bird – each one like scoring a miniature movie. I spent many hours with these videos writing the music. I feel like I got to know the hummingbirds in a deep way — their personalities, behaviours, appearance, energies, and movements — and I tried to capture something of each one’s essence in the music. The piece can be performed in two ways: with the hummingbird videos playing or without.

It felt like a natural fit for this music to take miniature form, since hummingbirds are so small. The Green Thorntail and Purple-throated Woodstar in particular are about the size of my thumb. I was also inspired by some favourite sets of miniatures: ‘Sept Papillons’ for solo cello by Kaija Saariaho and ‘Six Bagatelles’ for string quartet by Anton Webern.

This piece was commissioned by Harbourfront Centre Toronto for Duo Holz — Aysel Taghi-Zada, violin and Michael Murphy, percussion.

Matthias McIntire, June 2024