If you haven’t lately, check out all the cool happenings on OceanWorldofSound.com and try our 30 day listening challenge!
Finally getting a chance to post about my new status as the World Champion of Viola da Gamba Composition! Ok ok, well, I’m pretty excited that I won the International Traynor Composition Competition for new music for viol consort. My piece is called “equilibrium” and is for four viols. One of the lines stays on the same pitch throughout the piece, a fun challenge (and yes, I was inspired by Purcell). Here’s the write up in Early Music America –
The theme I developed for World Listening Day 2022 is “Listening Across Boundaries.” Choose your own adventure with this free audio file or free script to lead your own event to connect with your soundscape and listen across boundaries. Here is an open link to a google drive folder that contains
- the full guided audio as .wav or .mp3
- a script to lead your own event as google doc or pdf
- a coral reef sound clip as an optional inclusion to play during your script reading
This soundwalk style experience can be completed while walking, or staying still, indoors or outdoors, alone or with a group. If you use the audio file, find a location where you can listen without headphones.
If you use these materials, let me know how it goes!
World Listening Day is celebrated every year on July 18th. Check out the World Listening Project website to learn more and to register your events, or sign up to participate in events.
Here is the theme description I developed, I hope you will make it your own and find even more ways to Listen Across Boundaries:
The theme for World Listening Day 2022 “Listening Across Boundaries” invites us to explore the role of listening across branches of knowledge including scientific, medical, and musical purposes; how natural soundscapes do not recognize human-drawn boundaries of protected areas or countries; listening across cultures; the remarkableness and challenges of listening virtually; and seeming limitations or barriers to listening that can be overcome.
Some sound transmission channels are expanding across geographical and technological boundaries – especially in the virtual realm – and we need to adapt to best seek opportunities. Some listening spaces are seemingly limited by pandemic precautions, yet have untapped potential. Other areas and ways of listening are unexplored, waiting to be discovered, hiding insights at intersections of boundaries and unheard perspectives. As more of the world becomes interconnected and online, it is important to be inclusive of all peoples of the world who have not had as much voice at the table. Climate change shifts ecological and biome boundaries, forcing migrations of flora, fauna, and people. It is imperative to document and listen to existing and changing soundscapes.
As we listen across boundaries, in ways previously unimaginable, we gain respect and insights, and connect.
Today we announced that the theme for World Listening Day 2022 will be “Listening Across Boundaries.” I’m super excited to have been chosen as the theme creator for this year and that my choice of theme seems to resonate with so many and in such interesting directions.
World Listening Day is celebrated every year on July 18th.
Check out the World Listening Project website to learn more and to register your events, or sign up to participate in events.
Here is the theme description I developed:
The theme for World Listening Day 2022 “Listening Across Boundaries” invites us to explore the role of listening across branches of knowledge including scientific, medical, and musical purposes; how natural soundscapes do not recognize human-drawn boundaries of protected areas or countries; listening across cultures; the remarkableness and challenges of listening virtually; and seeming limitations or barriers to listening that can be overcome.
Some sound transmission channels are expanding across geographical and technological boundaries – especially in the virtual realm – and we need to adapt to best seek opportunities. Some listening spaces are seemingly limited by pandemic precautions, yet have untapped potential. Other areas and ways of listening are unexplored, waiting to be discovered, hiding insights at intersections of boundaries and unheard perspectives. As more of the world becomes interconnected and online, it is important to be inclusive of all peoples of the world who have not had as much voice at the table. Climate change shifts ecological and biome boundaries, forcing migrations of flora, fauna, and people. It is imperative to document and listen to existing and changing soundscapes.
As we listen across boundaries, in ways previously unimaginable, we gain respect and insights, and connect.
Check out our new YouTube Channel “World of Sound” and in particular, our 30 day challenge. For about 2 minutes per day, build your active listening skills and explore a variety of underwater soundscapes. It’s a great way to connect with the ocean, pause and collect yourself, and gain listening tools. Let us know what you think!
World of Sound 30 Day Challenge youtube playlist
.
Join us on world listening day July 18 2021 for an ocean soundscape experience. We will begin with a “tune in” exercise to tune our ears, and then explore underwater sounds, including never before heard recordings from the MesoAmerican Reef System. We will have open discussion on discoveries and methods and look forward to your input and insights.
Who: You! Anyone interested in the ocean, sounds, and learning to ‘tune in’ more effectively. All experience levels welcome.
What: World Of Sound Workshop. Come explore the ocean soundscape with us.
When: Sunday July 18, 4-5pm Eastern
Where: Online! We will be using Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/kmi-raih-kjd
Why: The ocean has unheard songs and untold stories. Let’s explore together.
How: With appreciated support from the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative!
(This workshop is in memory of beloved colleague Mark Ballora, sonification expert and friend, who left us too early on this day two years ago.)
World Listening Day is July 18! Time to start planning and prepping!
Tune in May 28 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern for a virtual concert/talk on my soundscape compositions including live Q and A
Craft In America – Summer Virtual Concert Series: Heather Spence
Heather Spence is a marine biologist and musician who explores ocean soundscapes by recording, analyzing, and composing music from underwater sounds. She will be premiering new music compositions that explore the nightlife of coral reefs and incorporate underwater recordings and sonified data collected for her scientific research. Can listening to nocturnal mystery fish and crackling shrimp reveal any insights for ocean conservation? She will also be speaking and answering questions about her work.
https://www.craftinamerica.org/event/summer-virtual-concert-series-heather-spence
This Friday we lost our Nona Flory – composer, musician, singer, mentor, performer, reviver of the Ladino language… We are grateful for the time we had together and honored to help carry on her amazing musical legacy. Flory Jagoda taught Laz Tiyas her songs by ear, to carry on the tradition of songs passing down from women to women.
Laz Tiyas performing at County Fair in 2011
LAZ TIYAS. A group of women came to Flory in 2008 and asked her to teach them her songs. Since then they have been singing together every week. The name “Laz Tiyas” honors her aunts in her song of the same name.
Laz Tiyas include:
Tiya Mazalta – Janet Dunkelberger – Arlington VA
Tiya Grasya – Maya Giacobbe – Arlington VA
Tiya Luna – Heather Spence – Arlington VA
Tiya Paloma – Martha Halperin – Arlington VA
Tiya Estreya – Cory Giacobbe – Pristina, Kosovo
Tiya Miriam – Judith Wouk – Ottawa, Canada
Tiya Regina – Regina Barker-Barzell, Arlington VA
Tiya Elena – Elena Yepes – Medellín, Colombia
Laz Tiyas street performing in 2009
Laz Tiyas singing on Capitol Hill 2019
LASER talk
Nov 12 2020
Music from Other Worlds
RSVP for this event
November 12 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm Pacific
Location: Zoom
Heather Spence (Marine Biologists and Composer) on “Underwater Sound Research:
Music of Marine Biology”
Cheryl Leonard (Composer and Instrument Builder) on “Phantom Limbs: Composing Music Amidst the Sixth Extinction”
The LASERs are an international program of evening gatherings that bring together artists, scientists, thinkers, inventors, and scholars who are working on paradigm shifts for informal presentations and conversation with the audience. Chaired by Piero Scaruffi. Visit www.lasertalks.com for more details.
Heather Spence is a marine biologist and sound artist who combines science and art to harmonize human-environment interactions. She has taught courses on animal behavior, behavioral neuroendocrinology, sensation and perception, personality, etc. Her Passive Acoustic Monitoring research program on the MesoAmerican Reef is featured in National Geographic’s television program “When Sharks Attack”, and is explored in her composition for viola da gamba trio, Vale la Pena?. She composes music inspired by, and inspiring, conservation and performs internationally as a cellist and gambist. She currently advises on science and acoustics at the US Department of Energy and is co-leader of the transdisciplinary Ocean Memory Project/
Cheryl E. Leonard is a composer, performer, and instrument builder whose works investigate sounds, structures, and objects from the natural world. Her projects cultivate stones, wood, water, ice, sand, shells, feathers, and bones as musical instruments, and feature one-of-a-kind sculptural instruments and field recordings from remote locales. She uses microphones to explore aural worlds within her sound sources, and develops compositions that highlight the unique voices she discovers. Her recent projects focus on climate change and extinction of species.
