“Some biologists have made it their calling to use their special knowledge and education to look at the natural world from the ecological perspectives. Why then should composers and musicians not make it their calling to use their special knowledge and education to listen to the world from the ecological perspective?” -- Hildegard Westerkamp - 2002 

Environmentally engaged artists and researchers from the University of Sussex and around the globe are featured in four days of discussions, concerts, films and installations centred on a celebration of the music and ideas of Hildegard Westerkamp, at the Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts on the Sussex campus at the end of January. 

Hildegard Westerkamp (1946-) is a soundmaker, teacher and thinker who is celebrated today as the mother of acoustic ecology - the study of the sonically mediated, reciprocal relationships between the environment and its inhabitants. Westerkamp’s pioneering work at the intersections of composition, environmentalism, acoustic communication, radio arts, listening practices and soundwalking activate an awareness of sound as a decisive dimension of the world, an idea that underpins, and is transforming contemporary thinking across social, political, artistic and scientific practices of environmental respect and concern. 

Dr Alice Eldridge, Artistic Director of the festival says “one aim of this annual festival of music and ideas is to explore the interactions between music and other ideas. This year, ‘Acoustic Ecologies’ highlights the importance of interdisciplinarity in addressing contemporary environmental issues. The science has been very clear for decades but we now realise that it not enough, it feels valuable to explore the role of other methods and practices in turning things around. Taking Hildegard’s work as a starting point, the festival highlights the valuable interactions between artistic and scientific concepts and methods for engaging with the soundscape; we are asking how listening – in all it’s forms – can develop environmental understanding, empathy, communication, action and justice”. 

Artists taking part in the festival include: Leah Barclay (AU), Angus Carlyle (UK), Anja Kanngieser (AU), Annie Mahtani (UK), Jez Riley French (UK), Steven Feld (US), Yolande Harris (US), Hanna Tuulikki (UK) & Voces del Bosque (EC) plus new works from Sussex Music students Dylan Beattie, Ryan Bridgewater, Catherine Ireton, Louis Berna Moya, Pete Myson and Max Worgan 

(£20/£10) ACCA Café & Auditorium 

An informal meeting for UK and Ireland Soundscape Community members new and old to meet each other and consider the role of acoustic ecology in contemporary society. 

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ukisc-network-meeting-tickets-86265048081 

 
The Festival of Music and Ideas is an annual collaboration between the University of Sussex Music Department and the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts. 2020 is curated by Dr. Alice Eldridge.