Hildegard Westerkamp

Hildegard Westerkamp
Born	(1946-04-08) April 8, 1946 (age 78) Osnabrück, Germany
Nationality	Canadian
Alma mater	University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University
Known for	composer, radio art, acoustic ecology
Notable work	Fantasie for Horns I (1978) A Walk Through the City (1981) Harbour Symphony (1986) Cricket Voice (1987) Kits Beach Soundwalk (1989) Beneath the Forest Floor (1992) Gently Penetrating Beneath the Sounding Surfaces of Another Place (1997) Into the Labyrinth (2000) Attending to Sacred Matters (2002) MotherVoiceTalk (2008)
Website	www.hildegardwesterkamp.ca

Hildegard Westerkamp (born April 8, 1946, in Osnabrück, Germany) is a Canadian composer, radio artist, teacher, and sound ecologist.^[1] She is known for her contributions to and development of acoustic ecology, soundscape composition, and soundwalks, particularly through her work on the World Soundscape Project in the 1970s-'80s. She has written extensively on these topics for journals and conferences, including Organised Sound.

Westerkamp studied flute and piano at the Conservatory of Music in Freiburg, West Germany from 1966 to 1968, then moved to Canada to study for a Bachelor of Music from the University of British Columbia, which she earned in 1972.^[2] During this time as a student she encountered both Barry Truax and R. Murray Schafer, and began working for Schafer as part of the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in 1973.^[3] She later enrolled as a student in the communications department and completed her thesis, entitled "Listening and Soundmaking: A Study of Music-As-Environment," for a Master of Arts in 1988;^[4] she taught acoustic communication at Simon Fraser until 1990.^[3] In 2024, Westerkamp received an honorary doctorate from SFU in recognition of her contributions to acoustic ecology, music composition, and sound studies.^[5]

Westerkamp became a naturalized citizen of Canada in 1975. In 1972, she married the Canadian poet and playwright Norbert Ruebsaat and collaborated with him on a number of projects before their separation.^[1] She later maintained a long-term relationship with Peter Grant, who passed away in 2014 and to whom her 1997 piece Talking Rain is dedicated.^[6]

Creative, Public, and Scholarly Work

Music

Many of Westerkamp's compositions deal with the acoustic environment, a method of composing known as soundscape composition.^[7]^[8] As part of her work with the World Soundscape Project she listened to and catalogued the Project's field recording archives,^[9] and has since dedicated the majority of her work to pieces that involve the layering and manipulation of field recordings.^[3] She additionally popularized the creative method/experience of soundwalking, which she defines as "any excursion whose main purpose is to listen to the environment."^[10] Works such as Kits Beach Soundwalk are inspired by this practice.^[11]

Collaborations

She collaborated with director Gus Van Sant, with whom she seemed to share work that explored similar concepts. To quote Randolph Jordan, "Her compositions are ideally suited for helping to flesh out Van Sant's portraits of young people adrift in worlds from which they are seemingly detached, but who might well be pointing towards alternative modes of environmental awareness." ^[12]

1973–91

From 1973–80 Westerkamp worked as a research associate along with R. Murray Schafer at the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University. This work fed into Schafer's book The Tuning of the World.^[13] In 1974 she began working as a producer and host at CFRO (Vancouver Cooperative Radio). Through her work with Schafer and with radio, she developed a deep interest and concern for noise and the acoustic environment, which greatly influenced her style of composition. After this time, she began to experiment with recording, processing, and mixing environmental sounds in the recording studio.^[14]

Westerkamp was involved in several other research projects on noise, acoustic ecology and music. From 1974 to 1975, she was a researcher with the Noise Abatement Project of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation in Vancouver.

Throughout the 1980s, she developed an interest in music for live performance, and in creating installations and other "composed environments" (sometimes in collaboration) for specific sites. In 1982, she was a researcher for the Women in Music project at Simon Fraser University.^[14] She is also a founding member of the World Forum on Acoustic Ecology (WFAE).

1991 - present

After 1991, Westerkamp devoted herself to more fully to composing, lecturing, and writing, disseminating her compositions and ideas at concerts and conferences. She was editor of The Soundscape Newsletter^[15] from 1991 - 1995 and joined the editorial committee of Soundscape: The Journal of Acoustic Ecology,^[16] for the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology in 2000.

She has also composed soundtracks for radio dramas and film and her music has been featured in movies by Gus Van Sant including Elephant (2003) and Last Days (2005).^[14] She collaborated with Jesse Zubot on the electronic score for Koneline (2016).^[17]

Some of Westerkamp's works are directly related to feminism. In 1990, she composed "École Polytechnique", which was commissioned by Montréal Musiques Actuelles/New Music America. According to Andra McCartney and Marta McCarthy, "Hildegard Westerkamp's (1990) composition École Polytechnique is an artistic response to one of Canada's most profoundly disturbing mass murders, the 1989 slaying of fourteen women in Montreal, Quebec."^[18]

Discography

Recordings featuring Westerkamp's compositions, chronologically:

(1989) Kits Beach Soundwalk
(1990) Anthology of Canadian Music: Electroacoustic music
(1990) The Aerial 2
(1990) Électro clips (empreintes DIGITALes, IMED 9004, rereleased 1996 as IMED 9604)
(1994) Radio Rethink - art and sound transmission
(1995) Der Verlust der Stille
(1995) Klang Wege
(1995) Transmissions From Broadcast Artists, Radius #4
(1996) The Vancouver Soundscape
(1996) Transformations (empreintes DIGITALes, IMED 9631)^[19]
(1997) 1977-1997, 20 Jahre Osnabrücker Komponisten
(1998) Harangue I (Earsay, ES 98001)
(1998) Harangue II (Earsay, ES 98005)
(1999) The Dreams of Gaia
(1999) This Place is Dreaming (Kraak, K047)^[20]
(2000) Radiant Dissonance
(2002) Into India (Earsay, ES 02002)^[21]
(2003) Musique inpirée et tirée du film Elephant
(2003) S:on
(2022) Breaking News (Earsay, ES 22001)^[22]
(2023) Klavierklang (Earsay, ES 23003)^[23]

List of works

Compositions

Whisper Study (1975–79)
Familie mit Pfiff (Theme and Variations) (1976)
Fantasie for Horns I (1978)
Fantasie for Horns II (1979)
A Walk Through the City (1981)
Cool Drool (1983)
His Master's Voice (1985)
Harbour Symphony (1986)
Cricket Voice (1987)
Moments of Laughter (1988)
Kits Beach Soundwalk (1989)
The Deep Blue Sea (1989)
Breathing Room (1990)
École polytechnique (1990)
Beneath the Forest Floor (1992)
India Sound Journal (1993)
Sensitive Chaos (1995)
Dhvani (1996)
Talking Rain (1997)
Gently Penetrating Beneath the Sounding Surfaces of Another Place (1997)
Into the Labyrinth (2000)
Attending to Sacred Matters (2002)
Like a Memory (2002)
Breaking News (2002)
Liebes-Lied/Love Song (2005)
Für Dich-For You (2005)
MotherVoiceTalk (2008)
Once Upon a Time (2012)
Beads of Time Sounding (2016)
Klavierklang (2017)
The Soundscape Speaks - Soundwalking Revisited (2021)
The Soundscape Speaks - A Remix (2022)

Composed environments and sound installations

Cordillera (Music from the New Wilderness Festival, Western Front Gallery, Vancouver, Feb 1980)
Zone of Silence Story, with Norbert Ruebsaat (Zone of Silence Project, Museum of Quebec, Quebec City, Dec 1985–Jan 1986
Coon Bay (1988)
Türen der Wahrnehmung (Ars Electronica '89, Linz, Austria, Sept 1989)
Nada – An Experience in Sound, in collaboration with Savinder Anand, Mona Madan, and Veena Sharma (Mati Ghar, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts Janpath, New Delhi, India, 10–25 Dec, 1998)
At the Edge of Wilderness, in collaboration with photographer Florence Debeugny (Industrial Ear, Vancouver, Sept 8-16, 2000; Whyte Museum, Banff, 11 Oct, 2002 – 19 Jan, 2003; Victoria College of the Arts, Melbourne, 19–27 March 2003)
Soniferous Garden, rev. of Part 4 of Nada (Engine 27, New York, 7–15 Nov, 2000; Sound Practice [first UKISC Conference on Sound Culture and Environments], Dartington College of Arts, UK, Feb 2001; CCNOA, Brussels, 2–9 Feb, 2003; x-tract Sculpture Musicale, Podewil, Berlin, 1–12 Apr, 2003)

References

Notes

^ ^a ^b Kirk MacKenzie. "Westerkamp, Hildegard." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed December 5, 2015.
^ Hoolboom, Michael; Frise, Heather. "Hildegard Westerkamp". Retrieved September 16, 2024.
^ ^a ^b ^c Clarke, Michael; Dufeu, Frédéric; Manning, Peter (2020). Inside computer music. New York, NY, United States of America: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-065968-4.
^ "Hildegard Westerkamp - Monoskop". monoskop.org. Retrieved 2024-09-17.
^ Deneault, Tessa Perkins. "Communication alumnus and renowned acoustic ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp receives honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from SFU". www.sfu.ca. Retrieved 2024-09-17.
^ "Westerkamp Talking Rain (1997)". Hildegard Westerkamp. Retrieved 2024-09-17.
^ Westerkamp, Hildegard (April 2002). "Linking soundscape composition and acoustic ecology". Organised Sound. 7 (1): 51–56. doi:10.1017/S1355771802001085. ISSN 1469-8153.
^ Truax, Barry (August 2008). "Soundscape Composition as Global Music: Electroacoustic music as soundscape". Organised Sound. 13 (2): 103–109. doi:10.1017/S1355771808000149. ISSN 1469-8153.
^ Hagood, Mack (January 9, 2023). "Hildegard Westerkamp: A Life in Soundscape Composition". Phantom Power (Podcast Interview). Retrieved September 16, 2024.
^ "Agosto Foundation :: Soundwalking". agosto-foundation.org. Retrieved 2024-09-17.
^ Velasco-Pufleau, Luis (2023-06-05). Listening is Action: A Soundwalk with Hildegard Westerkamp. Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7679234. Retrieved 2024-09-17 – via Zenodo.
^ Jordan, Randolph. "The Work of Hildegard Westerkamp in the Films of Gus Van Sant". Offscreen. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
^ Schafer, R. Murray (1977). The Tuning of the World. Knopf. ISBN 0771079656.
^ ^a ^b ^c "Hildegard Westerkamp". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2015-12-05.
^ "WFAE Soundscape Newsletter Archive". wfae.proscenia.net. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2015-12-05.
^ "World Forum For Acoustic Ecology". wfae.proscenia.net. Archived from the original on 2015-12-08. Retrieved 2015-12-05.
^ Ennis, Paul (10 June 2016). "Music and the Movies: Koneline: our land beautiful". the WholeNote. Retrieved 7 February 2018.
^ McCartney, Andra; McCarthy, Marta. "Choral. Public, and Private Listener Responses to Hildegard Westerkamp's École Polytechnique". Hildegard Westerkamp (Inside the Soundscape). University of Guelph. Retrieved 11 December 2022.
^ Transformations, retrieved 2024-09-16
^ "KRAAK | Various This Place is Dreaming". www.kraak.net. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
^ "Into India, by Hildegard Westerkamp". earsay music. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
^ "Breaking News, by Hildegard Westerkamp". earsay music. Retrieved 2024-09-16.
^ "Klavierklang, by Hildegard Westerkamp and Rachel Iwaasa". earsay music. Retrieved 2024-09-16.