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Podcast: New Books in Art
Episode: Hildegard Westerkamp: A Life in Soundscape Composition
Description: Today we speak to Hildegard Westerkamp, the pioneering composer, radio artist and sound ecologist. The centerpiece of all of her work is a close attention to the sonic environment and its relation to culture. We will listen to excerpts of six soundscape compositions made between 1975 and 2005, all of which reward the close listener–conceptually and aesthetically–with a deeper relationship to the sonic environment. Mack Hagood interviewed Westerkamp shortly after the death of R. Murray Schafer in late 2021. Westerkamp worked closely with Schafer in the early 1970s and she graciously agreed to talk about him despite the grief b...