As we approach the December 1 2023 deadline, it is crucial that we maximize our efforts to ensure widespread participation and engagement from our members. All voices and perspectives are extremely important in shaping the future of our organization and its endeavors. By sharing experiences, perspectives, and expertise, members will actively contribute to the creation of a more holistic and inclusive representation of the global work in the domain of acoustic and sound ecology. 

Additionally, we would like to encourage you to contribute regular information about your own initiatives and projects, helping us to establish a more dynamic and interconnected global communication network within our community. This will enable us to disseminate newsletters that highlight the latest news in the field of acoustic ecology worldwide.

Thank you in advance for your time and contributions. Your dedication to advancing the field of acoustic and sound ecology is deeply appreciated.
 Warm regards,
Raquel Castro
WFAE President

WFAE Treasurer Callout
 
The WFAE is seeking Expressions of Interest for position of Treasurer on the WFAE Executive effective immediately.
Financial members of WFAE Affiliate Organisations and WFAE Individual Members are eligible to submit an EOI.
Potential candidates should familiarise themselves with the WFAE Bylaws prior to submitting an EOI.

​The position description is available under the hyperlink below.

​Tsonami 2023 Festival
 
The XVII edition of the Tsonami Festival, in Valparaíso, Chile, this year 2023 presents an intense radio and on-site program with more than 100 participating artists.

This version is structured on the basis of month-long residencies in the city of Valparaíso, where six collectives from Latin America and the world have been conducting research and projects focused on the sound dimension and listening in the territory.

In addition, the festival simultaneously has a radio dimension, with a continuous streaming signal through www.radiotsonami.org, 24 hours a day, with works created for the festival, premieres, live broadcasts and pre-recorded works. The program also includes a series of on-site activities carried out by the collectives and guest artists where you will be able to attend each day of the event.

We invite you to review the program in detail, follow them on Radio Tsonami and attend the events of this XVII edition of Tsonami that will take place between Saturday, November 25 and Friday, December 1, 2023.

​​Thank you for your valuable input.

Warm regards, 

Mickey Vallee, Ph.D.
Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Sound Studies
Associate Professor of Cultural Studies, Athabasca University
Board of Directors Member, Canadian Association for Sound Ecology
Canadian Representative, World Forum for Acoustic Ecology

In my initial months as President of WFAE, I've devoted my energies to a fundamental pursuit: attentive listening. Listening to my colleagues on the WFAE Executive, listening to the Board representatives of our affiliates, listening to the members of our network. Therefore, I’d like to extend an invitation to all those who aspire to contribute to the advancement and recognition of Acoustic Ecology as a pivotal discipline in comprehending the intricate dynamics surrounding our planet's sustainability. We are eager to learn more about the topics that interest you in this field, the events you are organizing, the courses you are offering, the research projects you are involved in. We are also interested in understanding the acoustic concerns in your geographic areas, as well as your expectations and needs in this domain.

To facilitate this exchange, a comprehensive survey crafted by Dr. Mickey Vallee of the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology (CASE) will soon be circulating, a cornerstone in our quest to present a vivid and current depiction of our global community.

Further initiatives are on the horizon. We will soon relaunch the publication of our journal, Soundscape, which is being rebranded Acoustic Ecology Review in a new publication partnership with Simon Fraser University. The journal will launch in September 2023 with a special edition featuring the WFAE 2023 Conference Proceedings edited by Milena Dromeva and Lindsey French. Special thanks to Jesse Budel for his administrative support with the new digital platform.  Acoustic Ecology Review will be calling for guest editors and special
edition for 2024-2025. Please reach out to the journal editor Leah Barclay
([email protected]) with any questions.   

Additionally, we intend to renew our website and offer continuous, up-to-date and relevant information, along with a global map of acoustic ecologists around the world. Let us know if you feel you can contribute to this endeavor. We would greatly appreciate your active participation.

Finally, I want to express my gratitude to Claude Schryer, our valued treasurer, who recently vacated his position on the Executive Board. His dedication, availability, knowledge, and precious contributions have made him an essential member in the core decisions of this network. We are currently seeking someone to fill his position – more details about this opportunity here.

Happy listening,

Raquel Castro

The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology is saddened at the loss of respected teacher and composer Susan Frykberg, who passed away in Whanganui, New Zealand on Friday, April 7, 2023. She was 68 years old.

Several obituaries for Susan have been published on the WFAE website:

• Hildegard Westerkamp, Wendelin Bartley and Tina Pearson shared their memories of Susan for the Association of Canadian Women Composers (ACWC) and the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology (CASE)
• Cat Hope, Susan's PhD supervisor, wrote an obituary for Susan in Australia's CutCommon Magazine
• the earsay music label published a commemoration of Susan on their website
• The Whanganui Chronicle also published an article at her passing, acknowledging the importance of her home country of New Zealand, and especially of Whanganui as a spiritual home.

To contribute your own memories of Susan's life and legacy, please contact WFAE Secretary Jesse Budel at [email protected]

The World Forum for Acoustic Ecology is saddened at the loss of Susan Frykberg, who passed away in Whanganui,  New Zealand on Friday, April 7, 2023. She was 68 years old.

Susan was a much loved and active member of the acoustic ecology community, and was instrumental in the founding of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology and delivery of acoustic ecology courses at Simon Fraser University.

Cat Hope, Susan's PhD supervisor, wrote an obituary for Susan in Australia's CutCommon Magazine, reproduced here with permission:

"Susan Frykberg was an electronic music composer and sound artist whose music practice became an increasingly spiritual one. A citizen of both New Zealand and Canada, she lived most recently in Melbourne where she was a key part of the music scene over the last 10 years. Frykberg composed more than 80 musical works during her life, including music for acoustic, theatre, and religious settings in addition to many electroacoustic works. For her, music was an expression of her creative, intellectual, and spiritual life, and she was involved in key electroacoustic music scenes wherever she lived. She passed away in Whanganui, New Zealand from a terminal illness, amongst her family.

Born in Hastings, New Zealand, Frykberg undertook her undergraduate music studies with a minor in Theatre at the University of Canterbury, where she focused on computer music. Over time, she studied with composers such as John Rimmer, Barry Vercoe, Barry Conyngham, Barry Truax, and took classes with Iannis Xenakis and John Cage. She moved to Toronto, Canada in 1979 where she worked as a freelance composer, collaborating on the Structured Sound Synthesis Project with Bill Buxton at the University of Toronto, with the Canadian Electronic Ensemble and the composing collective Gang of Three. A key work from this period is Transonances (1984), a 50-minute piece characterised by voices subjected to and augmented by a range of treated and synthesised sounds. These were soundworlds she would return to throughout her life, as she sought a way to address what it meant to be a human continually augmented by technology.

In 1986, she moved to Vancouver where she completed a Masters Degree in Electroacoustic Composition at Simon Fraser University. She taught Acoustic Ecology there for several years, immersing herself in what was the centre of soundscape studies at that time, working alongside Hildegard Westerkamp and others. This period would profoundly influence her approach to composition and life thereafter, and she remained in close contact with her colleagues after she moved back to New Zealand in 1998. There she undertook studies in Classics and Theology at the University of Otago, and a five-year hiatus from composing ended in 2002 with the notated a cappella vocal work Virgin Mother, performed by Baroque Voices for RNZ Concert. She moved to Melbourne around 2014.

Frykberg’s music has been performed around the world in radio, concert and academic settings. Key works include Astonishing Sense of Being Taken Over by Something Far Greater Than Me, (1998) from the Astonishing Sense album released on Canadian label Earsay. Featuring violinist Nancy DiNovo, it is a beautiful, deep, and haunting piece that makes part of her extraordinary Audio Birth Project, a collection of works based on interviews with women about giving birth, including her sisters and mother, whose voices feature alongside cello, violin, piano, and soundscapes processed via a wide range of electroacoustic techniques. Women were often at the centre of her works – both conceptually and practically. The project was widely acclaimed, with articles in international publications such as Computer Music Journal, eContact and SplendidZine, and went on to be programmed as part of the 2008 Congress for the International Alliance of Women Musicians in Beijing, China.

More recently Frykberg was the lead composer and librettist for the multiplatform opera by Matthew Sleeth, A Drone Opera (2015-2020), commissioned by Experimenta, Melbourne and premiered at Arts House. The opera developed into a film that was shown at the Sydney International Film Festival (2019), an installation at Carriageworks (2019), Sydney and went on to be shown at Ars Electronica, Austria in 2020. In the words of her close collaborator and vocalist in the opera, soprano Judith Dodsworth, the work was a commentary on our tenuous and complex relationship with technology and its ability to simultaneously seduce and menace us, where the main dramatic thrust focused on the increasing distancing and ‘outsourcing’ of modern warfare as drones are employed to carry out the butchery1. Into what could have become a very stark landscape Frykberg brought reverence, wonder, compassion, and humanity2. Dodsworth remembers Frykberg as constantly curious, searching for connection and meaning, always reaching out to share ideas and collaborate with extraordinary warmth, humour and generosity of spirit3. 

Theatre was often a feature in her work. Machinewoman (1985) uses dance, movement and live saxophone, with pre-recorded sound emanating from a portable sound-system as part of the performers costume. Her improvisational group Let The Art Sing (2010-2012) combined instruments from different cultures with electronics that interacted with works of art in various regional galleries across New Zealand. She saw music and theatre as one entity functioning to transform the people within the society.



Frykberg’s other contributions to music are notable. She was a founding member of two core international organisations: the Canadian Electroacoustic Community and the World Forum of Acoustic Ecology, and and received an Honourable Mention in the International Alliance of Women Musicians New Music Competition in 2014. She produced programs about electroacoustic music for Radio New Zealand, and documentaries about Canadian composers for the Canadian Broadcasting Commission program Two New Hours. Her written publications include MusicWorks, Organised Sound, the International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, a range of conference proceedings and a forthcoming co-authored chapter with Dodsworth in the upcoming volume The Composer, Herself: Contemporary Snapshots of the Creative Process edited by Linda Kouvaras, Natalie Williams, and Maria Grenfell. She wrote an academic teaching text entitled Dimensions of Acoustic Communication, on which she based a series of workshops held for the public in Melbourne in 2019. In addition to her teaching in Canada, she also taught in Melbourne at RMIT and Box Hill TAFE.

Susan commenced her PhD in Music Composition at Monash University in 2018, completed shortly before her passing. I had the pleasure to be the supervisor of her project on spirituality and electronic music, alongside Professor Constant Mews. She was working on a range of new compositions exploring the nexus of spirituality and electronic sound, including chants with electronics she had devised together with A Drone Opera collaborators Dodsworth and Hamish Gould. She was also developing larger scale electronic works that examine her own life through time, sounds created in space and the theories of the sixth-century music theorist, philosopher, and theologian Boethius, exploring a wide range of iPad applications for sound synthesis and editing. Other university graduate students note Frykberg’s enthusiasm to collaborate and support others, as someone with a genuine interest in others4, passionate and generous5, kind and caring6.

It is important to acknowledge these wonderful contributions Susan Frykberg made to music worldwide, and their impact closer to home. Whilst this summary by no means considers all her achievements, as I met Susan later in her life, I hope this provides some insights to the importance of her work. The staff and students at Monash University will miss her joyous contributions. We are lucky to her wonderful, adventurous music to remember her by."
​
Additional commemorations will be published on the WFAE In Memoriam page for Susan.

To share your own memories of Susan here, please email WFAE Secretary Jesse Budel on [email protected]

Dear WFAE Members and Acoustic Ecology community,


We are excited to announce that the final keynote speaker for the upcoming WFAE Conference, ‘Listening Pasts, Listening Futures’ in March 2023 is Claude Schryer.


Claude Schryer (1959, Ottawa, he/him) believes the arts, in the context of decolonization, can play a much more impactful role in shaping our collective future and has dedicated the rest of his life to this vocation. He is a franco-ontarian sound and media artist and arts administrator of european ancestry. He holds a MM in composition from McGill University and was actively involved in the acoustic ecology and electroacoustic music communities in the 80’s & 90’s. From 2000 to 2020 he held management positions at Canada Council for the Arts in Inter-Arts and as a strategic advisor. He currently produces the conscient podcast on art and the ecological crisis. He describes his artistic aesthetic as ‘an exploration of the liminal space between reality, fantasy and spirit’. He is also an environmental activist who volunteers with the Sectoral Climate Art Leadership for the Emergency (SCALE) (chair of the board and member of the Mission Circle) and regularly gives workshops, facilitates meetings, and participates in panels and presentations on art and the ecological crisis.  He is grateful to the Gesturing Towards Decolonized Futures collective and the Facing Human Wrongs course for guidance in his learning and unlearnings. He is a zen and qi gong practitioner, son of Jeannine and Maurice Schryer, husband of Sabrina Mathews, father of Clara Schryer and Riel Schryer. 


Schryer was a founding member of the WFAE at its inception at the 1993 ‘Tuning Of The World’ International Conference in Banff, Alberta. He joins Amanda Gutierrez and David George Haskell as a keynote speaker.


We also note that the conference Call For Presentations deadline has been extended to 15 October 2022. More information on the conference, registration fees, and CFP can be found on the WFAE website.

Dear WFAE Members and Acoustic Ecology community,

This post is a reminder that it is now two weeks until the close (October 1) of the Call for Presentations for the upcoming WFAE Conference in March 2023.  More information on the conference, registration fees, and CFP can  be found on the WFAE website.

We are also excited to announce the next of our keynote speakers, David George Haskell.

David Haskell is a writer and a biologist. His latest book, Sounds Wild and Broken, explores the story of sound on Earth. Starting with the origins of animal song and traversing the whole arc of Earth history, he illuminates and celebrates the emergence, diversification, and loss of the sounds of our world, including human music and language. The New York Times selected the book as an “Editor’s Choice”. His previous books, The Forest Unseen and The Songs of Trees are acclaimed for their integration of science, poetry, and rich attention to the living world. Among their honors include the National Academies’ Best Book Award, John Burroughs Medal, finalist for Pulitzer Prize, Iris Book Award, Reed Environmental Writing Award, National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature, and runner-up for the PEN E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Haskell received his BA from the University of Oxford and PhD from Cornell University. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, a Guggenheim Fellow, and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN, USA. Find him at dghaskell.com and on social media @DGHaskell (Twitter), DavidGeorgeHaskell (Instagram and Facebook).

Haskell joins Amanda Gutierrez as a keynote speaker.

Dear WFAE Members and Acoustic Ecology community,

This post is a reminder that it is now three weeks until the close (October 1) of the Call for Presentations for the upcoming WFAE Conference in March 2023.  More information on the conference and CFP can be found on the WFAE website.


This post also features several announcements related to the conference.


We are pleased to announce Amanda Gutierrez as one of our keynote presenters. 
A member of the new WFAE affiliate, REA_MX, and one of the Directors of the World Listening Project, Gutiérrez explores the experience of home, belonging, and cultural identity by bringing into focus details of everyday practices whose ordinary status makes it particularly hard for us to notice their key role in defining who we are. Gutiérrez uses a range of media including sound art and performance art to investigate how these conditions of everyday life set the stage for our experiences and in doing so shape our individual and collective identities. 
Approaching these questions from women’s perspective continues to be of special interest to Gutiérrez, who completed her MFA in Media and Performance Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently elaborating on the academic dimension of her work developing her Ph.D. studies in Arts and Humanities (HUMA) at Concordia University in Canada, studying the field of aural technologies in connection with Gender Studies in the urban context.  For more information, visit http://www.amandagutierrez.net/ 


We are also delighted to note that Jacek Smolicki will be Artist in Residence at the Atlantic Centre of the Arts, and will lead a pre-conference workshop on Wednesday, March 22.


Lastly, the 2023 WFAE conference fees are as follows, grouped under three categories:
Registration, with lodging at the Atlantic Centre for the Arts:

• Full fee (3-day attendance, accommodation & meals inclusive) – $650.00 USD
• Early Bird / WFAE Member Rate – $550.00 USD
• Verified Student/Need-based Rate – $400.00 USD

Registration, with no lodging at ACA (accommodation to be sought by delegates)

• Full fee (3-day attendance + lunch) – $275.00 USD
• Early Bird (3-day attendance + lunch) – $210.00 USD
• Full fee (single day attendance + lunch) – $125.00 USD
• Student fee (3-day attendance + lunch) – $100.00 USD
• Student fee (single day attendance + lunch) – $50.00 USD

Please note that recommendations for accommodation close to the conference site will be provided upon registrations opening.

​Registration, virtual conference

• Virtual attendance (3 days, incl. registration to Discord community channel) –  $50.00 USD
• Virtual attendance (single day, incl. registration to Discord community channel) – $20.00 USD

Registrations for the conference will open on January 6, 2023.

Dear WFAE Affiliate and Individual Members,

I write to inform you of the upcoming 2022 WFAE Annual General Meeting, which will be held on Saturday 7 May at 12:00PM GMT/UTC (translation to your own time zones can be done at TimeAndDate.com).  

Following a successful online AGM last year, the meeting will be held on Zoom.

Additionally, with the recent review and ratification of the WFAE Bylaws, the Executive positions – President, Vice-president, Secretary and Treasurer – are now elected at each AGM by the general membership.

Position descriptions, drawn from the Bylaws, are as follows:

• The President shall be responsible for the general and active management of the affairs of the WFAE, and shall preside at all meetings of the WFAE and of the Board.
  
• The Vice-president shall, in the absence of the President, perform the duties of the President and shall perform such other duties as shall from time to time be determined by the Board. Should the office of President become vacant between elections, the Vice-president shall assume the vacancy and continue through their rightfully-elected term.
  
• The Treasurer shall have custody of the funds and securities of the WFAE and shall keep full and accurate accounts of all assets, liabilities, receipts and disbursements of the WFAE in the books belonging to the WFAE and shall have deposited all monies, securities and other valuable effects in the name of and to the credit of the WFAE in such chartered bank, trust company or any other financial institution, or in the WFAE of securities, in such registered dealer in securities as may be designated by the Board from time to time. The Treasurer shall disburse, or authorise the disbursement of the funds of the WFAE as may be directed by proper authority taking proper vouchers for such disbursements, and shall render to the President and directors at the regular meeting of the Board, or whenever they may require it, an accounting of all the transactions and a statement of the financial position of the WFAE. The Treasurer shall also perform such other duties as may from time to time be directed by the Board.
  
• The Secretary is responsible for all administration concerning the minutes of meeting and sending notices for meetings. Areas of supervision for the Secretary include:
  ● WFAE public image (website) maintenance and updates
  ● WFAE mailing list maintenance and archiving
  ● Secretary replies to physical and electronic correspondence
  ● Contributing ideas & vision
  ● Special projects
  ● Co-admin of WFAE social media
  ● Keeper of the archives (Archivist)
  

To register your interest in attending, please fill out this Zoom registration form.  To optionally make nominations for WFAE Executive positions, please fill out this Google Form.

An agenda will be sent in due course.


Thank you for your consideration, with kind regards,

Jesse Budel
​WFAE Secretary

The WFAE has been undertaking a review of its Bylaws, last ratified in June 1998. Following a consultation period, the finalised amendments are to be voted upon by WFAE membership. Given the international reach of the organisation, voting will be coordinated via an online Google form at: https://docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLSdfCI31gZe.../viewform....

Members of WFAE Affiliate Organisations and WFAE Individual Members are eligible to vote.

Each amendment is arranged sequentially under its relevant section of the Bylaws, accompanied by an explanation (in parentheses) of changes to each clause and a simple 'yes' or 'no' response for members to cast their vote.

For further context, the full Bylaw Review document is available here: https://docs.google.com/.../18bGb7Wt1xuNFSbwRl4kb.../edit...

As per current bylaws (9.2), each amendment requires an "affirmative vote of two-thirds (2/3) of the members" to be approved.

There are 30 amendments for consideration, which should take between 10-20 minutes to complete. Voting will close on 20 February 2022.

Thank you for your participation, with kind regards,

​Jesse Budel
WFAE Secretary