Report: American Society for Acoustic Ecology. The ASAE continues its strong development of projects and activities as new regional chapters are added. Read the full ASAE report for details of events in the United States.

Report: Canadian Association for Acoustic Ecology. The CASE is sponsoring The 4th International Soundscape Retreat and Symposium: Negotiating Space/Place In The Changing Soundscape on Garbiola Island, British Columbia, Canada June 12-14, 2009. Speakers include: Helmi Järviluoma (Finland), Keiko Torigoe (Japan), Hildegard Westerkamp (Vancouver), Barry Truax Vancouver) Charlie Fox (Regina) and Eric Powell (Vancouver). Details online.

Deep Ecology's Arne Næss Passes. (The Guardian) Arne Næss, who has died aged 96, was Norway's best-known philosopher, whose concept of deep ecology enriched and divided the environmental movement. A keen mountaineer, for a quarter of his life he lived in an isolated hut high in the Hallingskarvet mountains in southern Norway.
      Through his books and lectures in many countries, Næss taught that ecology should not be concerned with man's place in nature but with every part of nature on an equal basis, because the natural order has intrinsic value that transcends human values. Indeed, humans could only attain "realisation of the Self" as part of an entire ecosphere. He urged the green movement to "not only protect the planet for the sake of humans, but also, for the sake of the planet itself, to keep ecosystems healthy for their own sake". Read Article.

The Sonic Traveler: Listening With the Naked Ear (The Daily Traveler). There is a growing community of acoustic ecologists and biophilia theorists who fear we're suffering from a national epidemic of manmade noise on the one hand and "nature-deficit disorder" on the other. Read Article

The Sound Generated by Mid-Ocean Ridge Black Smoker Hydrothermal Vents (Plos One). Hydrothermal flow through seafloor black smoker vents is typically turbulent and vigorous. Although theory predicts that these flows will generate sound, the prevailing view has been that black smokers are essentially silent. Here is presented the first unambiguous field recordings showing that these vents radiate significant acoustic energy. Read Article

Law aims to provide safer tyres (BBC). Research done in London found a real link between traffic noise and the risk of a heart attack, and some more research done in Sweden came out recently which again reinforced there is a link between cardiac health effects and traffic noise. Read Article

Birds are singing themselves sick (CBBC). Birds living in busy cities are making themselves ill because they are singing louder and louder to make themselves heard above the noise. Read Article

Baby Birds' Efforts to Outshout City Noise May Take Toll (National Geographic News). Screeching brakes, wailing sirens, blaring music, roaring jets—the constant din of city noise is enough to drive some of us to distraction. But what of the birds that must share our increasingly motorized world? Can they make themselves heard? Read Article

Audio "Aphrodisiac" Spurs Rare Cheetah Birth--A First (National Geographic News). In a world first, a rare baby cheetah owes its life to a doctored recording of a recently discovered male call that triggers ovulation. Read Article

Hearing, Noise, and School: Hearing Well in a Good Listening Environment Critical for Success (ASHA). A student's ability to hear and understand verbal information is vital, but often is reduced in schools because poor classroom acoustics allow excessive levels of background noise into the classroom, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Read Article

Musical ritual in Mexico City: from the Aztec to NAFTA
By Mark Pedelty
Edition: illustrated
Published by University of Texas Press, 2004
ISBN 0292702310, 9780292702318
340 pages

On the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City, Mexico's entire musical history is performed every day. "Mexica" percussionists drum and dance to the music of Aztec rituals on the open plaza. Inside the Metropolitan Cathedral, choristers sing colonial villancicos. Outside the National Palace, the Mexican army marching band plays the "Himno Nacional," a vestige of the nineteenth century. And all around the square, people listen to the contemporary sounds of pop, rock, and música grupera. In all, some seven centuries of music maintain a living presence in the modern city.     This book offers an up-to-date, comprehensive history and ethnography of musical rituals in the world's largest city. Mark Pedelty details the dominant musical rites of the Aztec, colonial, national, revolutionary, modern, and contemporary eras, analyzing the role that musical ritual played in governance, resistance, and social change. His approach is twofold. Historical chapters describe the rituals and their functions, while ethnographic chapters explore how these musical forms continue to resonate in contemporary Mexican society. As a whole, the book provides a living record of cultural continuity, change, and vitality.

The Calls of Frogs and Toads
Paperback: 80 pages; Dimensions (in inches): 0.28 x 8.02 x 6.03
Publisher: Stackpole Books; Book and CD edition (March 2004)
ISBN: 0811729680

Learn the sounds of 42 species of frogs and toads native to eastern and central North America with this unique 72 page full color book and an accompanying 65-minute audio compact disc.
    Part one of the compact disc is a reference guide to the calls of every species. Arranged by taxonomic family and grouped by similarity of sounds, each species is introduced by name followed by a sample of its calls.
     Part two of the disc is a narrated introduction featuring examples of advertisement calls, aggressive calls, release calls, rain calls, distress calls warning calls, hybrid calls, countersinging, mixed species choruses, and more.
     The full color book provides excellent photographs as well as detailed descriptions of the calls of each species along with physical characteristics, life history, and breeding information. Learn More.

Barry Truax Announces Soundscape Composition Disc. Following the positive response to my Truax's HTML documentation DVD-ROM he is pleased to announce the availability of a second such disk, this one dealing with soundscape composition. It includes historical documentation of the World Soundscape Project (WSP) and excerpts of all of its audio documents, plus a survey of soundscape composition techniques illustrated by tracks from the WSP, the author and other composers whose work has been featured on Cambridge Street Records. In addition, a presentation on the concept of Acoustic Space draws on examples from acoustics, psychoacoustics, environmental acoustics, acoustic ecology, and multi-channel diffusion systems.
    The DVD-ROM also includes a complete documentation of three of my soundscape pieces (Pendlerdrom, Island
and Temple) including all of the sources, tracks and processing parameters used in their creation, with numerous
sound examples and spectrograms, in a format suitable for classes and advanced study. Further information is available on line along with ordering information.

Special Film Screening: Soundwalkers.

We are pleased to link readers to Soundwalkers a documentary by Raquel Castro. We recommend viewing this 30 minute documentary at full-screen. The film is also available at Vimeo web site.

Raquel Castro, who lives in Portugal, writes about her film: "There are some fundamental principles regarding the construction of an acoustically healthy society, one where we can exist within the sounds of life. Respect towards voice and words, sonic awareness, the awakening of the sense of hearing. To preserve the sounds that tend to fade out, while remaining open to the sounds that spring out of each technological stride. To build an aural idiom that interprets its own symbolism. To accept the silence, enforcing it in the due moments. And, above all else, to listen."

Director/video editor/sound resarcher, Castro has been working with video since her Pro Memoria project, a series based on the oral memory of Portuguese communities, which required her travelling for years around the country collecting voices, sounds and children's drawings. That project facilitated her thinking about sonic identity and acoustic communities. In her quest, she discovered the WFAE and the important work Murray Schafer and his fellows had already made.

She enjoyed learning that there were other people studying soundscapes and she soon wanted to know more. Her studies lead to writing a thesis about Acoustic Ecology, but her main interest was to express herself on video, her preferred medium for work.

For this film she collected interviews with people from around the world, with different knowledge and opinions, but with the same listening attitude towards sound. This resulted in the documentary, Soundwalkers, the first of a series about specific features of the sonic world.

Previous video work embracing global issues include "The Neighborhood" and "Leve Leve non Caba Ué", which received the first prize at the Portuguese Video Festial Ovarvideo 2007.

Although she has been called a video nomad she and her husband live in Lisbon where she continues to research the city soundscape while at the same time teaching about video, new media and image studies.

Montreal Sound Map Project (Submitted by Max Stein). Max Stein is an undergraduate student in the Electroacoustic Studies program at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Stein writes that the Concorida Electroacoustic Studies Student Association (CESSA) started a Google Maps-based sound map of Montreal project in November, 2008 that over the last several months has received consistent contributions from people of a wide variety of backgrounds and interests.

The project's main goal is for people to put more focus on listening to the soundscape. By listening to these sound recordings on a website, the listener is focused and able to hear sounds that would normally go unnoticed. With the realization that these recordings were taken directly from the soundscape, we are hoping that people will put more concentration on listening to the environments with which they interact.

Other goals include organizing all sounds into a browseable tagging system based date, time, location, and sound characteristics (future). There has also been interest from contributors in documenting changes taking place in different sections of the island (i.e. from urban development).

The Concordia Electroacoustic Studies Student Association was formed to promote and advocate activity and awareness in matters electroacoustic through presentation, promotion, preservation, and communication, with particular concerns being health, environmental, and social issues pertaining to sound through electroacoustic and related forms of media.

Researcher Studies Cultural Background and New Listening Experiences. Tsai-wei is a graduate student conducting PhD research in the music department, Goldsmiths College, University of London. The provisional title of her research is 'On the Way Home: Taipei sojourners' sonic constellations in London'.

London is a multi-cultural global city that attracts thousands of temporary residents each year. Taking Taipei sojourners as a case study, Tsai-wei's research investigates the sounds that they listen to, recollect and imagine when they are in London.

The research focuses on the emotional and cultural impacts of foreigners' listening experiences and are analysed using methods and techniques from various disciplines.

Although Taipei sojourners are bodily situated in London's urban environment, the research argues that their listening experiences are more than what they can physically hear in their city of temporal residence. Being influenced by the auditory memories of homeland, their spatial, temporal and cross-cultural movements and interactions are perceived and negotiated through sounds. The sonic constellations that have formed from the past auditory experiences provide the necessary compass for navigating through London's soundscape. Visit researchers web site.

An exhibition of Tsai-wei's work took place last June at Goldsmiths, University of London, New Cross, London, UK.
'Sonic Constellations' was a sound installation that included 33-channels of sound and two large GIS maps. Participants were invited to discover ten Taipei sojourners' listening experiences in London, which had been transformed into sonic geographies linking homeland and foreign land. Related link.

Researcher Calls For Assistance. Kirsten Reese is conducting research for her PHD at the University of the Arts in Berlin. Her foucs is on acoustic land art, which she defines as "... sound art and composition performed or presented in and referring to landscape and nature".
     Reese is putting together a list of works dealing with sound and landscape/nature and would greatly appreciate it if artists could send her a list of their respective works. She notes that qualifying works should:

• Have been performed or installed in an open air enviromental/naturalsetting,
• Deal with, or refer to, nature and landscape in some way. (Natural soundscapes produced for indoor presentation or CD would therefore NOT be included).

The following information should be included if possible:

• Name of artist with date of birth;
• Title, year and place of firstperformance/presentation of work;
• Short description preferably withindication of the kind of sound production and the way nature/landscape isincluded in the work;
• Notes on existing source material anddocumentation/publication. (Until now the list contains around 120 works).

Reese plans to publish her thesis as a book and will keep any contributor informed regarding this project. Send youinformation to: kirsten.reese@gmx.net Web site: http://www.kirstenreese.de

Sound mapping Mithi River. Sound mapping Mithi River is an independent sound installation by Rajivan.Ayyappan complimenting the SOAK discourses: a sound creation as part of an exhibition SOAK: Mumbai in an Estuary, to be presented at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai in May 2009. It is a sound documentary; a re-interpretation of the acoustic environments of a River, as a sonorous data, perhaps musical in an eclectic sense. Read more.

Article: Hearing There by David Drury. (Vague Terrian: Digital Art/Culture/Technology). Drury writes, "Hearing There is an interactive soundwalk along a stretch of Boulevard St. Laurent in Montréal. The idea is simple: the listener, wearing headphones attached to a small PDA, walks along the street and the sound they are hearing at any given moment is a binaural recording of the interior space closest to where they are standing.

Walking by the grocery store, one hears the electronic beeps and plastic rustles of the checkout counter, moving on past the Portuguese bakery, the hum of the ovens and the animated conversation of the bakers comes to the fore. One’s movement along the street is imbued with a sonic projection, as if one were in fact moving through the interior spaces themselves - through the normally sound-isolating walls of the storefronts." Read full article.

Beam Research Opportunities. Get off-campus and study wild orcas for 10 weeks this fall! Apply now to conduct your own research with the Beam Reach Marine Science and Sustainability School. Beam Reach is for you if you want to:

• study endangered orcas and their prey in the wild
• use advanced bioacoustic tools in your own research project
• network with experts in killer whale conservation
• learn to sail a biodiesel-electric catamaran
• explore the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest
• earn 18 credits from the University of Washington

We are still accepting applications for:Fall 2009 -- August 24 - October 31. To apply you should have completed your first year of college, be interested in the marine environment, and want to spend 10 weeks off-campus in an intensive field research experience. Learn More.

TANGAMANGA
Sound Composition by Iván Sánchez.

In the Huachichil culture, the word Tangamanga means land of gold and water. In the past, that was the name of the city of San Luis potosí, México. But today it is the name of a public park in the same city.

The Tangamanga landscape composition was realised with sounds recorded at a native community near the municipality of Aquismón, located at the Huasteca Potosina, with the help of the local inhabitants and the support of the institutions FECA and CANTE from Potosí San Luis.

TANGAMANGA, a work in progress, was based on theories of Eco-Composition and the search of a more personal language, where the original sources and their process directed the composer in the development of the work.

This is the 15 minute stereo version with video by Omar Bernal. There is also a version of 40 min. and a 5.1 mix by the artist Israel M.

Iván Sanchez - composer and guitarist, has composed for bands like RADIO KAOS, EL MONOLITO, and orchestral settings such as the Choir of the Symphony Orchestra of San Luis Potosí.

At the moment Sanchez directs the Laboratorio de Arte Sonoro at CANTE as part of the Center of Arts in San Luis Potos, teaches classes in arts and culture at the ITESM and undertakes productions in his own sound studio.

At CANTE, he is involved in composition, artistic production and education, and coordinates the sonorous and electronic arts festival: TEMPO.

May, 2009
Open Call for Works
Giant Ear ))) New York
~~~ Scott Sherk will be hosting the May edition of Giant Ear ))) the two-hour internet radio program sponsored by the New York Society of Acoustic Ecology. The program will be based on recordings of 24-hour periods of specific places. Scott is interested in hearing your recordings and your strategy for making comprehensible the aural soundscape of one place over a 24 hour period. Please send submissions in mp3 format through an upload service (yousendit, etc.) or email me for snail mail. Include in your submissions a statement about how your recordings were made. Send submissions to: scottsherk27@yahoo.com. Learn more about Giant Ear online.

May, 1-31, 2009
Barry Schrader's Lost Atlantis
Fonoteca Nacional, Mexico City
~~~ Three movements of Lost Atlantis will be presented in their original quadraphonic format on the ElectroVisiones Festival in Mexico City at the Fonoteca Nacional.  This is a festival of multichannel electroacoustic music.  The three sections of Lost Atlantis that will be presented are:   Introduction:  The Pillars of Hercules - The Great Harbor; The Temple of Poseidon - The Dance of the Gods; The Destruction of Atlantis - Epilogue:  “...and Atlantis shall rise.” Please see the ElectroVisiones website for specific information.

May 14-16, 2009
Symposium "Soundscapes & Listening" of the European "Forum Klanglandschaft FKL"
University of Applied Sciences, St. Pölten, Austria
~~~ Conventions of the European "Forum Klanglandschaft FKL" are take place every two years in one of the European member countries these have included: Vienna (2001), Meran (2003), Potsdam (2005) and Basel (2009). This year, the convention is held at the University of Applied Sciences, St. Pölten.
    Within this year's convention, current works on the topic of soundscape studies from the fields of science and art respectively - ranging from culture, media or music science, geography and music pedagogy to music therapy, composition, sound and media art as well as broadcast applications - are presented as papers or presentations. Read more online.

Ab sofort ist das Programm der 4. FKL-Tagung "Soundscapes & Listening" verfügbar. Die Tagung findet vom 14.-16. Mai in St. Pölten, Österreich, statt. Ein Anmeldeformular sowie weitere Informationen finden Sie unter http://soundscapes.fhstp.ac.at/

May 28-30, 2009
The 7th Annual Radio Without Boundaries Conference
Artscape Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St., Toronto
~~~ The seventh annual Radio Without Boundaries conference makes Deep Wireless an internationally sought after destination for radio producers, radio and transmission artists and those with a general interest in radio and transmission art.
    We are very excited to feature three keynote speakers: Gregory Whitehead (USA), Brandon LaBelle (Germany/US), and Hank Bull (Can). Also included are Chris Brookes (Can), Andrea Dancer (Canada), Paul Ingles (USA), Tom Roe (free103point9.org, NY, USA), Anna Friz (Can), Mark Blevis (Can), Emmanuel Madan (Can), Alessandro Bosetti (Italy), Kristen Roos (Can), Andra McCartney (Can) & Neil Sandell (Can) plus many more. Conference workshops include "Oh, Shut Up! Who needs a narrator anyways?" by Chris Brookes, "Build a Micro-Radio Transmitter," "How to Pitch" by Paul Ingles, "Podcasting" by Mark Blevis and "Listening Sessions" with Gregory Whitehead as well as many more break-out sessions during the conference weekend free for those registered for the conference. For conference and registration information go to: http://www.naisa.ca/RWB/

Deadline: May 29, 2009
Call For Submissions and Commission Proposals
Expo Leeds 24-29 September 2009
Presented by Sound and Music and MAAP
~~~Expo is the hub and playground of the experimental music and sound art scene in the UK and beyond. Free and open, the event mobilises a national network of artists and engages with communities from all backgrounds –placing sonic art and the people who make it in direct contact with the public. Expo steps out from traditional venues and into spaces that lie at the heart of the community - inspiring practitioners and the public to reconsider their environments.
    Expo will land in Leeds in September 09 for a long weekend of performance, exhibition and presentation which will take place across a variety of physical and virtual spaces.
    The weekend aims to highlight the broadest possible range of approaches and thinking that surround the sonic arts. We welcome submissions of all kinds. Alongside international artists. the festival has previously showcased work by young people, disabled adults and those with learning difficulties, students and hundreds of emerging UK artists. We want all work of all kinds that has sound as a central element.
    As well as asking for all kinds of submitted work for its programme Expo Leeds is offering £4000 of commission money towards the creation of a new installation work that will sit within the Leeds Arena space at Leeds City Museum during the festival weekend. Please visit www.expofestival.org for details on how to submit and updates on the programme. The closing date for submissions and commission proposals is 29 May 2009.

June 12-14, 2009
The 4th International Soundscape Retreat and Symposium: Negotiating Space/Place In The Changing Soundscape
Garbiola Island, British Columbia, Canada
~~~ The Canadian Association for Sound Ecology (CASE) invites you to participate in its 4th International Soundscape Retreat and Symposium. The weekend long retreat and symposium will take place at the Haven on the weekend of June 12-14, 2009 on Gabriola Island, BC and will include lectures/talks on the theme Negotiating space/place in the changing Soundscape as well as ear-cleaning exercises, soundscape concerts, show-and-tell sessions for participants and outdoor soundwalks. There is no previous experience necessary and all are welcome to attend. Speakers include: Helmi Järviluoma (Finland), Keiko Torigoe (Japan), Hildegard Westerkamp (Vancouver), Barry Truax Vancouver) Charlie Fox (Regina) and Eric Powell (Vancouver). Details online.

June 24-28, 2009
Jackson Hole Soundscape Workshop
Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA
~~~ This is a preliminary announcement of a 4-day natural soundscape workshop in one of the most beautiful spots inAmerica, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The program will take place at the Murie Center -- the folks who established the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Murie Center is located within the boundary of Grand Teton National Park, which has also approved this workshop. View the Murie Center web site for details.

September 14-18, 2009
XXII IBAC Conference
Lisbon, Portugal
~~~ The 22nd International Conference of the International Bioacoustics Council (IBAC) will be held from 14-18 September 2009 at Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal. Following the tradition established over 35 years ago, the IBAC meeting fosters interactions among scientists interested in the factors that regulate sound production in animals. Moreover, IBAC meetings aim to bring together, in informal settings, biologists from different specialists (ethologists, physiologists, taxonomists, etc) with engineers, sound archivists and amateur sound recordists, to foster discussion and exchange of ideas.
    The scientific program will be composed of sessions of invited speakers integrated with contributed short talks and poster presentations. Please visit the conference website. Call for paper submissionand early registration deadline: May, 10th.