Hildegard Westerkamp is a composer, radio artist and sound ecologist. 
She is a pioneering figure within the field of soundscape studies and sound ecology and an integral member of the World Soundscape Project. She presents soundscape workshops, performs, writes and lectures internationally. For comprehensive information please visit http://www.sfu.ca/~westerka/index.html
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ER. Can you talk about the origins of the Vancouver Soundscape Project – how it came about, and your own involvement.

HW. The World Soundcape Project (WSP) was a research project, initiated by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University in the late 60s and remained under his direction until the late seventies. When I joined the project in 1973, the group (then consisting of R. Murray Schafer, Barry Truax, Peter Huse, Howard Broomfield, Bruce Davies and myself) were working on the document entitled The Vancouver Soundscape, published shortly after as 2 LPs and a book. It was…

Forty miles off the coast of Scotland lie the Outer Hebrides, an archipelago of islands whose populace have seen some harsh times yet still endure.  Over the past three decades, Cathy Lane has enjoyed a love affair with the archipelago. The Hebrides Suite is her sonic love letter to the land and people.

As a mixture of field recordings and interviews, the album has the feel of a television show without the sound.  Soon one begins to realize that the images are conjured in the mind, and perhaps appreciates the old radio shows a bit better.  Those shows captured the imagination and inspired generations to picture their own images.  While it helps to have the physical edition (with beautiful, extensive liner notes), it’s fascinating to simply listen and to be awash in sounds.  Awash is the key word, as the ocean is never far from the foreground.  Sea salt…

Eastern sounds are unfamiliar to most Western ears, and vice versa.  What seems innocuous in one territory may be misinterpreted in another.  Never is this more apparent than on the opening selection of Mosaïque Mosaic, as what seems at first to be a militant speaker turns out to be the voice of a church evangelist at a Sunday service.  The difference between expected and apparent timbre would be a wonderful subject for study in international relations.  Do we really understand each other?  If not, what would it take?

For the sound artists involved in this recording, it took a pair of visits to Cameroon.  The seeming abrasion of amplified speech and music from outdoor speakers (not exclusive to Cameroon) masked a deep appreciation of musical tradition among the residents.  The West manipulates music as well; the amplified bass and distortion in dance music and the removal of “non-essential” sounds…

Let me say first of all, I just about barely know who Rick Stein is.  A quick google search tells me he is a fairly well known celebrity chef- I didn’t check if American or British or other.  For the purpose of this post: not important.   Anyway, this gentleman here:

Photo via radiotimes.com

So how do I get to him? Indirectly via cable tv, which generally tends to give us precisely nothing intetesting to watch.  Skipping through the hundreds of channels the other day, I come across what could have been a National Geographic documentary- except the channel is named ‘Food‘ something-or-other, and the elderly gentleman is not Attenborough.

The scene is idyllic: lush greenery everywhere as Stein himself and his local guide, a young man who is steering the boat, are quietly gliding through a mangrove forest.

Photo: Barry Skipsey, australiangeographic.com

They are having an exchange about the endagered state of the forest, and about the…