Hildegard Westerkamp


ISEA Bio(s) Available:


  • ISEA2015

    Hildegard Westerkamp(DE/CA) has lectured on topics of listening, environmental sound and acoustic ecology and has conducted soundscape workshops internationally. By focusing the ears’ attention to details in the acoustic environment, her compositional work draws attention to the act of listening itself and to the inner, hidden spaces of the environment we inhabit. For details check her website. Her music has been commissioned by CBC Radio, Canada Pavilion at Expo ’86, Ars Electronica (Linz), Österreichischer Rundfunk, Zentrum für Kunst und Medien in Germany…. She received Honorable Mentions in competitions such as Prix Ars Electronica in Austria, Prix Italia, and the International Competition for Electroacoustic Music in Bourges, as well as a Recommendation for Broadcast from the International Music Council’s 4th International Rostrum of Electroacoustic Music… Her articles have been published in Radio Rethink, Kunstforum, Musicworks, MusikTexte and a variety of books… For an extensive exploration into her compositional work see Andra McCartney’s Sounding Places: Situated Conversations through the Soundscape Work of Hildegard Westerkamp, York University, Toronto, 1999, and in the internet. As part of Vancouver New Music’s yearly season she has coordinated and led Soundwalks for some years since 2003, which in turn inspired the creation of The Vancouver Soundwalk Collective. A founding member of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE, see: wfae.net), and long-time co-editor of its journal Soundscape,Westerkamp was a researcher for R. Murray Schafer’s World Soundscape Project in the Seventies, and has taught acoustic communication at Simon Fraser University with colleague Barry Truax.   sfu.ca/~westerka  wfae.net  beatrouteproductions.com/Andradiss.pdf

    ISEA2000

    Hildegard Westerkamp is a composer, radio artist, teacher and sound ecologist.

    ISEA1995

    Hildegard Westerkamp has been the editor of The Soundscape newsletter since 1991 and is a founding member of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology.

Last Known Location:


  • Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Additional Links:


Role(s) at the symposia over the years: