Problem: No one is listening to each other or the larger environment in these troubled times. There is so much noise all around us and inside our heads, we can't even hear ourselves think.
Solution: THE WORLD LISTENING PROJECT (WLP), founded in 2008, is devoted to fostering understanding of the world and its natural environment, societies and cultures through the practices of listening and field recording.
The World Listening Project's major program, World Listening Day, was established as an international day of awareness promoted through local and online activities on July 18 each year. This date, his birthday, honors the renowned Canadian composer, music educator and author, R. Murray Schafer, whose World Soundscape Project and seminal book The Tuning of the World developed the fundamental ideas and practices of acoustic ecology in the 1970s, and acted as a springboard for the current burgeoning and diversifying interests in our changing acoustic environment.
- Marian R. Byrnes Park, May 6, 2020, Norman B. Long
- Hear Below Soundwalk, February 14, 2020, Eric Leonardson, Christophe Preissing and Alex Braidwood
The World Listening Project also maintains a website which serves as an online forum about its artistic and educational activities. These include the use of radio and web-based technologies, conducting public workshops, forums, and lectures, as well as participating in exhibitions, symposiums, and festivals.
Our Board of Directors consists of esteemed artists and scientists active around the world. WLP often works in partnership with the Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology, also based in Chicago.
To learn more and become involved in the WLP’s activities please subscribe to our newsletters, follow us on Twitter, Vimeo, and “Like” our Facebook Page.