Bernie Krause’s 'The Great Animal Orchestra' Showcases the Sound – and Growing Silence – of Ecosystems

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Bernie Krause has spent more than 50 years capturing the sounds of nature and examining how animals make harmonious ecosystem soundscapes. His art installation, The Great Animal Orchestra, combining Krause’s audio recordings with stunning visuals representing the frequencies of animal sounds is on display at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. The exhibition features rich soundscapes of dozens of animal species from across the globe, including the Amazon Rainforest and the depths of the Pacific Ocean, but Krause says the silences in the recordings also tell a story– of populations in decline, nearing extinction, or being drowned out by encroaching human-made noise. We’ll talk to Krause about the sounds and silences in the natural world. Guests: Bernie Krause, soundscape ecologist; author, "The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:33.7	From KQED.
0:49.7	Music From KQED From KQED From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:51.8	What does nature sound like?
0:57.0	It's not a humpback whales beautiful song or the trill of a songbird or the hoot of an owl. No, these are individuals, single instruments in an orchestra.
1:01.0	And it's the broader interdependent sonic landscape
1:04.0	that's fascinated soundscape ecologist Bernie Krauss for more than 40 years
1:09.0	since he first set up his stereo microphones out in the world.
1:12.7	His work is getting the beautiful meditative exhibition it deserves up now at the Exploratorium.
1:18.5	But this is also a bittersweet moment.
1:20.8	Many of the soundscapes he first committed to tape both locally and across the world have been destroyed.
1:26.0	We talk about and hear his life work after this news.
1:30.3	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
	...

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