Hildegard Westerkamp

Hildegard Westerkamp (born April 8, 1946, in Osnabrück, Germany) is a Canadian composer, radio artist, teacher, and sound ecologist. She is known for her contributions to and development of acoustic ecology, soundscape composition, and soundwalks, particularly through her work on the World Soundscape Project in the 1970s and 1980s. She has written extensively on these topics for journals and conferences, including Organised Sound.

Westerkamp studied flute and piano at the Conservatory of Music in Freiburg, West Germany from 1966 to 1968, then moved to Canada to study for a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of British Columbia, which she earned in 1972. During this time as a student she encountered both Barry Truax and R. Murray Schafer, and began working for Schafer as part of the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in 1973. She later enrolled as a student in the communications department and completed her thesis, entitled "Listening and Soundmaking: A Study of Music-As-Environment," for a Master of Arts degree in 1988; she taught acoustic communication at Simon Fraser until 1990. In 2024, Westerkamp received an honorary doctorate from SFU in recognition of her contributions to acoustic ecology, music composition, and sound studies.

Westerkamp became a naturalized citizen of Canada in 1975. In 1972, she married the Canadian poet and playwright Norbert Ruebsaat and collaborated with him on a number of projects before their separation. She later maintained a long-term relationship with Peter Grant, to whom her 1997 piece Talking Rain is dedicated; Grant died in 2014.

Many of Westerkamp's compositions deal with the acoustic environment, a method of composing known as soundscape composition. As part of her work with the World Soundscape Project she listened to and catalogued the Project's field recording archives, and has since dedicated the majority of her work to pieces that involve the layering and manipulation of field recordings. She additionally popularized the creative method/experience of soundwalking, which she defines as "any excursion whose main purpose is to listen to the environment." Works such as Kits Beach Soundwalk are inspired by this practice.

Collaborations

She collaborated with director Gus Van Sant, with whom she seemed to share work that explored similar concepts. To quote Randolph Jordan, "Her compositions are ideally suited for helping to flesh out Van Sant's portraits of young people adrift in worlds from which they are seemingly detached, but who might well be pointing towards alternative modes of environmental awareness."

From 1973–80 Westerkamp worked as a research associate along with R. Murray Schafer at the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University. This work fed into Schafer's book The Tuning of the World. In 1974 she began working as a producer and host at CFRO (Vancouver Cooperative Radio). Through her work with Schafer and with radio, she developed a deep interest and concern for noise and the acoustic environment, which greatly influenced her style of composition. After this time, she began to experiment with recording, processing, and mixing environmental sounds in the recording studio.

Westerkamp was involved in several other research projects on noise, acoustic ecology and music. From 1974 to 1975, she was a researcher with the Noise Abatement Project of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation in Vancouver.