Hildegard Westerkamp

Hildegard Westerkamp (*1946) ist Soundforscherin, Komponistin elektroakustischer Musik, Klangökologin, Flötistin, Pianistin und Autorin. In ihrer kompositorischen Arbeit befasst sie sich zentral mit Aspekten der akustischen Umwelt und arbeitet mit Aufnahmen von städtischen oder ländlichen Umgebungen. Westerkamp komponierte u.a. die Musik für die Filme Elephant und Last Days von Gus van Sant und ist Mitbegründerin des World Forum on Acoustic Ecology (WFAE).

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Cricket Voice (1987)

by Hildegard Westerkamp

Cricket Voice is a musical exploration of a cricket, whose song I recorded in the stillness of a Mexican desert region called the "Zone of Silence". The quiet of the desert allowed for such acoustic clarity that this cricket's night song – sung coincidentally very near my microphone – became the ideal "sound object" for this tape composition. Slowed down, it sounds like the heartbeat of the desert, in its original speed it sings of the stars.

The quiet of the desert also encouraged soundmaking. The percussive sounds in Cricket Voice were created by "playing" on desert plants: on the spikes of various cacti, on dried up roots and palm leaves, and by exploring the resonances in the ruins of an old water reservoir.

Cricket Voice was completed with the financial assistance of the Canada Council. The composition is dedicated to Norbert Ruebsaat, who wrote:

It's hard to be a night in the desert without the crickets.
You make it with stars.
You make it with the skin

of the desert night.
You stitch those two together
sky and earth.
You find it with your cricket voice.

Talking Rain (1997)

For Eight Digital Soundtracks
By Hildegard Westerkamp

Rainsounds from the westcoast of British Columbia, Canada are the basic compositional materials for Talking Rain. Through them I speak to you about this place. The raincoast. A lush and green place. Made that way by rain. Nourished by rain, life–giving rain. In Talking Rain the ear travels into the sonic formations of rain, into the insides of that place of nourishment as well as outside to the watery, liquid language of animals, forests and human habitations, all of which are nourished by the rain.

Talking Rain was commissioned by CBC Radio for Westcoast Performance. It was realized in my own studio, Inside the Soundscape, and was premiered on April 20, 1997. Most rain recordings for this piece were made by myself in and around Vancouver. Thanks to Norbert Ruebsaat for providing his recordings of ravens, eagles and frogs from Haida Gwaii and also for finding the right title for the piece, magically. Thanks to Bruce Davis and Peter Huse for their high–quality recordings made in the early seventies for the World Soundscape Project’s environmental tape collection at Simon Fraser University; to Robert MacNevin for his equally high–quality recordings made 20 years later (1991 to 95) for the same collection; to David Grierson for his light footsteps and receptive ears during the recording of our rainy forest soundwalk in Lighthouse Park near Vancouver. Special thanks go to John Siddall, producer of Westcoast Performance for giving me this opportunity and for challenging me to create a radio piece with sounds that must be the most difficult sounds to broadcast!

Talking Rain was dedicated to my long-time companion Peter Grant, who died in December of 2014.