Soundwalks in Vienna

“Let’s climb out of our bubbles, emerge from behind our walls and windows, computer screens, loudspeakers and headphones and open our ears directly to the environment. Let’s listen to “place” as if listening to a mysterious new concert performance or sound event. “Let’s listen like we have never listened before,” as the late Howard Broomfield used to say.

In a “soundwalk”, the listening “audience” moves through a place and the environment “performs.” The walking listener and the environment create a unique piece together that can only occur during the time of the walk. In a “soundwalk” we take the time to hear the environment: we are its true ear witnesses. And like any musician, the environment offers us its sounds for our consideration.

“Soundwalking” can be a way to deepen our relationship to “place”; to gain knowledge and information from the sound environment; to orient oneself in a place — especially in an unfamiliar one; to let the world in without any compulsion to respond; to be open without a need to define, intellectualize, categorize, or interpret; to listen without expectations, assumptions or judgement; “Soundwalking” can be a meditation: the world happens, the sounds occur and they pass. It can be a regular practice (alone or in groups).

A soundwalk is any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment. It is exposing our ears to every sound around us no matter where we are. We may be at home, we may be walking across a downtown street, through a park, along the beach; we may be sitting in a doctor's office, in a hotel lobby, in a bank; we may be shopping in a supermarket, a department store, or a Chinese grocery store; we may be standing at the airport, the train station, the bus-stop. Wherever we go we will give our ears priority”. Hildegard Westerkamp is a Canadian electroacoustic composer.

- coming soon. contact nigel for information