David took the name Lost Steps from Cuban novelist, essayist, and musicologist Alejo Carpentier’s most heralded novel, The Lost Steps. The story follows a composer’s journey into the Amazon, where his metaphysical experience yields a “realization that I had just witnessed the Birth of Music”, culminating in the inspiration to write the great symphony of his dreams. After reading Carpentier's book decades ago, David dreamed of hearing this great Amazon symphony himself. At last, in 2024, at the invitation of Diego and Marlene Samper of Calanoa Amazonas and the Wild Symphony Project, David set out to listen to the vast jungle. The result was his eponymously named album, Lost Steps.

David Rothenberg is a distinguished artist and listener, engaging with the natural sounds around us – not as background noise, but as rich, expressive “languages of life” waiting to be explored. Through collaboration with other species, he emphasizes the connection between humanity and the natural world. Rothenberg approaches listening as an act of earthly survival. To engage deeply, expressively, and joyfully with nature is to reconnect with a world from which we, as a species, have become increasingly disconnected. This activation encourages deep listening and environmental awareness, creative expression through music and sound, and a renewed sense of wonder about the natural world.

Rothenberg explores interspecies engagement across many disciplines, including music-making, writing, recording, lecturing, and performance. He lives and works in Cold Spring, New York, and is a Professor of Philosophy at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. David’s many books, including Why Birds Sing, Bug Music, and Survival of the Beautiful, have been published in at least eleven languages. He has released more than forty recordings, including One Dark Night I Left My Silent House, Just Leave It All Behind, and Lost Steps. Nightingales in Berlin and Eastern Anthems are his latest films.