1. HILDEGARD WESTERKAMP
http://grooveshark.com/#!/album/Trans+Canada+ZKM+Karlsruhe/7629931

2. Born 1946 in Germany.
Emigrated to Canada in 1968. She Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia
Since the world sound scape project- 1970’s-she’s
enjoyed listening closely to her surroundings.
Working for and with it
The World Soundscape Project (WSP) was an
educational and research group created by R.
Murray Schafer at Simon Fraser University during
the late 1960s and early 1970s. The work resulted
in two small educational booklets, The New
Soundscape and The Book of Noise
• Sound ecologist
• Adventurer

3. She's a Composer-
She likes to branch different sounds with there surroundings.
She hates the sounds of mechcanical engines. She feels that this ruins her silence and the natural sounds
that she records
She sees silence as the clearest ground out of which sound can rise in all its
colours, as a canvas in which mood circumstance and imagination can come
together to generate a whole range of inner meanings. In other words silence is
an opportunity, an open field of possibilities rather than an oppression (the
poetry of radio, the colour of sound, Sean street, 2012- silence: fear and
possibility, 41)
Radio artist- Vancouver Co-operative Radio
Lecturer

4. COMPOSITIONS

5. Für Dich – For You
• based on the poem Liebes-Lied by Rainer Maria Rilke and its newest translation into English, Love
Song, by Canadian poet and writer Norbert Ruebsaat.
• Speaks of love of one another
• On another level the composition explores a sense of place and belonging, of home and love.
• These sounds form the sonic/musical language of the piece together with the recorded voices (male
and female) of people close to me, speaking the poem, both in German and English.
• To open oneself to one’s original language and culture again, after having lived as an immigrant in the
country of one’s choice for a long time, is like opening oneself to an almost forgotten deep love and
connection to that past place. At the same time, one has lived and functioned in the country of one’s
choice for many years, one has established one’s very own home, one’s family, one feels at home
here, it is the right place to be. It also is a place of belonging and love. Thus, the piece is an exploration
of the heart, an exploration of where the heart is located in connection to culture, language and people.
In a globalized world where millions of us are on the move, whether as refugees, immigrants or just as
travelers, this has emerged as a wide-spread and relevant theme, as we are all in some way searching
for home and connectedness.

6. LOVE SONG**
Rainer Maria Rilke Translated by Norbert Ruebsaat
How shall I hold my soul so that it does not touch yours? How shall I lift it up over you so it
reaches other things? Oh, how I long to store my soul with something dark and lost in a
foreign becalmed place that does not vibrate when your depths vibrate. But all that touches
you and touches me contracts us like a bow that from two strings draws forth a single
voice. Upon which instrument are we two strung? And who, pray, is the fiddler who holds us
in his hand? Oh sweetful song.
*Source: Rainer Maria Rilke

7. Moments of Laughter (1988)
• Moments of Laughteris dedicated to her daughter Sonja whose voice forms the basis for
this piece.
• From the age of four on, she has made her own recordings of stories and songs.
Moments of Laughter utilizes these for the tape portion of the piece
• http://www.sfu.ca/~westerka/program_notes/laughter.html
•

8. COMPOSED ENVIRONMENTS
SOUND INSTALLATIONS

9. TÜREN DER WAHRNEHMUNG-DOORS OF
PERCEPTION (1996)
This piece was commissioned by the Östereichischer Rundfunk (ORF) for Ars Electronica
'89 in Linz, Austria.
In its entire length it is 30 minutes long and was broadcast into public urban places in Linz
during Ars Electronica.
Türen der Wahrnehmung: a door opens and we enter another sound world. A new sonic space
surrounds us and we listen. More and more doors open and we do not know what will meet
us.
Excerpts of Türen der Wahrnehmung have been used in Gus Van Sant's films Elephant and
Last Days.
http://www.sfu.ca/~westerka/installations/turen.html

10. Music from the Zone of Silence-1988
• December/January of 1984/85, 15 artists from 4 cultures camped together in the so-called
Zone of Silence in north central Mexico to explore the desert environment through their
respective desciplines and to make art.
2. Meditation
for improvising voices and tape, Length: 7:00
Everyone was lying, star-shaped and looking at the stars and doing sound/voice explorations.

11. Cordillerais
Poetry and Reading by Norbert Ruebsaat
The piece combines the voice with environmental sound from the landscape-the Western Canadian
mountain wilderness
the poem describes an ascent and movement through the high country. It is composed of 17 shorter
poems
Cordillerais is about landscape, about wilderness, about the human presence and voice in places that
are still considered by many to be barren and silent
http://www.sfu.ca/~westerka/installations/cordillera1.html