The Sound Studies Institute, in conjunction with Acoustics Week in Canada 2019, brings us an artist talk and masterclass from renowned soundscape composer and acoustic ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp.
Date: Thursday, October 10, 2019
Time: 3:30pm – 5:00 pm
Venue: Studio 2-7, Fine Arts Building, University of Alberta
Cost: Free admission
After completing her music studies at UBC in the early 1970s, Westerkamp joined the World Soundscape Project under the director of R. Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University. Her involvement with this project not only activated deep concerns about noise and the general state of the acoustic environment in her, but it also changed her ways of thinking about music, listening and soundmaking. A founding member of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology and chief editor of its journal Soundscape for twelve years, Hildegard Westerkamp has written extensively on acoustic ecology and the practice of listening. She has hosted soundscape workshops, lead soundwalks, given lectures, and performed concerts both locally and internationally.
Hildegard Westerkamp’s electroacoustic compositions and audio art are centred around exploring aspects of the acoustic environment: urban, rural or wilderness soundscapes, voices, noise or silence, music and media sounds, and the everyday sounds of cultures around the world. She has created pieces from and for specific sites, including Vancouver’s Harbour Symphony, École Polytechnique, and the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts in New Delhi. Westerkamp’s compositions draw attention to the act of listening itself, to the inner, hidden spaces of the environments we inhabit and to details both familiar and foreign in the acoustic environment.
You can listen to the CBC Ideas podcast featuring Hildegard Westerkamp to learn more about her work in soundscape composition and acoustic ecology.
