Sounding the Environment

20 Oct 2023

Happening On 26/10/2023

Music

Oct. 26, 11am-1pm

Ó Riada Hall, Department of Music, Sundays Well

Please join us for the first FUAIM Lecture/research seminar of the academic year, which is in the area of ecomusicology. Is climate change audible? What role does music play in environmental conservation? What is sound pollution? Is birdsong music? The experience of sound is one way we build knowledge about our surroundings and relationships with each other. The way we experience sounds involves a relationship between our bodies as receivers of sound and the producers of the sound--a relationship built not only on hearing but also on listening. Hearing is the way our bodies experience sound; listening is what we do with those sounds and how we make meaning from them. Listening is a kind of empathy, allowing us to know our environment through its sounds. Through the work of three historical and contemporary composers, I explore how the relationship between humans and sounds is shaped by our natural world surroundings. At a time of environmental crisis, music offers us a path to consider our relationship to our sonic environment through musical creations and to explore the role music plays as a resource in shaping our understanding of and our relationship with the natural world.