Acoustic ecology and the art of listening

Just because you can't touch, see or smell sound doesn't mean that the sounds around us don't affect us just as much as the quality of our water, air and physical environment.

Today's program is all about listening. July 18 was World Listening Day, named because it is the birthday of Canadian composer, educator and sound environmentalist R. Murray Schafer. The founder of the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University in the mid '70s influenced several generations of listeners world wide who listen, document and contextualize the sounds we hear around us.

1. An interview with Darren Copeland, artistic director of New Adventures in Sound Art. NAISA's celebration of World Listening Day was held on July 16, 2016 at the Canadian Music Centre in Toronto. It was called Sounds Lost and Found.

2. An excerpt from Station Breaks, a composition by sound artist, journalist and rabble podcast network executive producer Victoria Fenner, performed at Sounds Lost and Found.

3. An interview about a new online exhibition called Audio Postcards, a project of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology. With Andrea Dancer, president of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology, and soundscape composer and acoustic ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp.