Communication alumnus and renowned acoustic ecologist Hildegard Westerkamp receives honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from SFU

In recognition of her contributions to acoustic ecology, music composition, and sound studies, Hildegard Westerkamp received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree during the Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology’s convocation ceremony on June 14, 2024.

“I felt like this was the right moment to receive such an honour, even though I never expected anything like it,” she says over a zoom call in early July. “Two young, creative, intelligent women nominated me, and it was an interesting context for me, which felt very heartwarming.” Westerkamp was nominated by Milena Droumeva, Associate Professor and incoming Director of the School of Communication, and Communication alumnus Jennifer Schine.

Not only was Westerkamp gratified by receiving the honorary degree, she found it to be very meaningful to be presented with the degree by SFU President Joy Johnson and Chancellor Tamara Vrooman. “I was very touched by the fact that the two people who are running the university right now are these two remarkable women,” she says, “and they're setting a tone that I really like.”

It’s a stark contrast to the context in which she joined Simon Fraser University’s World Soundscape Project (WSP) in 1973 as the only woman on the team. The WSP was led by R. Murray Schafer, a pioneering composer who originated the idea of a “soundwalk” in which participants study the acoustic environment. While Westerkamp spent just nine months working with the WSP in an official capacity, the experience had a profound impact on her career as she went on to develop her own pioneering soundscape composition and soundwalk practice. She has inspired generations of sound artists, environmentalists, urban professionals and composers and left a legacy for countless scholars to follow.

As Westerkamp says in her convocation speech, “Simon Fraser University was a young institution in 1973, the year I started working with the WSP. Without its progressive atmosphere, Schafer would not have been able to develop his ground-breaking approach towards studying the acoustic environment – the soundscape – and ultimately to establish the foundations for the new field of acoustic ecology. This is where it all started.”

Westerkamp emigrated from Germany in 1968 and completed a Bachelor of Music at the University of British Columbia before coming to SFU. It was during a guest lecture by Schafer at UBC that she was first exposed to the idea of listening to the world. “The lecture made a deep enough impression that I remembered it and phoned Schafer a few years later in the hope that I could work with him and the World Soundscape Project. I was hired within a few weeks of this phone call and for almost a year I was the main researcher on his seminal book, The Tuning of the World (1977). This experience basically set the stage for the rest of my life,” says Westerkamp in an article about her experiences for the SFU Early Arts project.

“When I entered the World Soundscape Project, I didn't see myself so much as the only woman, I was just with people who I found incredibly interesting, and I was inspired by the context. It was fun, it was lots of work and really fascinating. I think it sort of set the tone for the way I worked all my life;” says Westerkamp, “I basically followed my passion, and did things that I was passionate about.” Although there was the occasional hiccup. “I had some issues with the guys because they initially wanted me to do the typing and Xeroxing, and I just said, that's not why I came here,” she says. Thankfully, that never overshadowed the most important thing: the revolutionary work they were doing to elevate the importance of soundscape studies.

When Schafer left SFU, Barry Truax took over leadership of the WSP. Westerkamp remained involved as a volunteer and associate until she joined the School of Communication as a master’s student in the early 1980s, supervised by Truax. Her thesis, “Listening and Soundmaking: A Study of Music as Environment” was published in 1988, and she went on to teach courses in the School over the following few years.

Westerkamp is a founding member of the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology (WFAE), which had its first international conference in 1992 in Banff, Alberta. From 2000 – 2012, she was the editor of Soundscape, the journal of the WFAE. In 2023, Soundscape shifted from annual publication to a digital journal and evolved to become Acoustic Ecology Review, published in partnership with the WFAE and SFU as part of the Public Knowledge Project. Westerkamp says this feels like a full circle moment with the journal now hosted at SFU.

Alongside her academic studies, Westerkamp developed her craft as a freelance composer. Her works, which feature original environmental sounds, have been presented internationally. Commissioned by the CBC in 1981, A Walk Through The City is based on a poem by Norbert Ruebsaat and features sounds from Vancouver's downtown eastside. In Beneath The Forest Floor we can hear sounds recorded in British Columbia’s old-growth forests, and Attending to Sacred Matters showcases sounds of religious and spiritual practices recorded in India and includes the voice of environmental activist Vandana Shiva.

Westerkamp conducted her first soundwalk 51 years ago in Convocation Mall at SFU. As she accepted her honorary degree in the same spot, she invited the audience in the mall to reflect on their acoustic environment: “Let’s listen to where we are: to this Mall, designed by Arthur Erickson in 1965. What is the closest sound you can hear? The most distant? What is the quietest sound? What if there was a sudden power outage? Which sounds would stop? Which ones might become audible? Remember Covid? How quiet the world became suddenly? Which sounds became clearly audible? Notice the sound of your own thoughts.” She rings a bell and waits, letting the moment wash over the crowd.

The practice of listening to our soundscape is more relevant than ever. As Westerkamp explains, listening can help us learn more about our environments and each other as we grapple with pressing matters such as the climate crisis and decolonization. “In capitalist society, silence is a threat,” she says. “It goes against the drive of society, of doing something, of getting somewhere, of finding paradise, or whatever it is that we want to find.”

In the early years of soundscape studies, the community was international but small. These days, there is a large community of scholars in the field, and the idea of soundscape and soundwalking has become more mainstream. “In the last five years, since the pandemic, it's been stunning to all of us how the interest in acoustic ecology, listening, and environmental concerns has just skyrocketed. Both Barry and I have been really busy as a result with constant zoom sessions and workshops, and it's been gratifying.”

Westerkamp says it may be time to take a break. She can no longer hear very high frequencies and as a result doesn’t feel comfortable composing like she used to. She’s spending more time writing and reflecting on the past. “After the convocation, I feel like it's a bit of a watershed for me; I think maybe now I can finally stop and not do so much anymore…maybe I have the right now to slow down.”

It's important to take a moment to slow down and listen once in a while. Westerkamp explains it best:

The School of Communication continues to be a leader in sound studies and acoustic ecology. Incoming director and associate professor Milena Droumeva manages the Sonic Research Studio along with senior lecturer David Murphy and professor emeritus Barry Truax.

To learn more about exciting research happening in the School of Communication and across the Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology, tune into our podcast Speakable, which will launch this September.

Learn more about Westerkamp’s soundwalks in this CBC Radio feature.

Learn more about SFU’s honorary degree recipients.