World Listening Day takes place every year on July 18, which is also Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer’s birthday. The day is organized  by the World Listening Project and is dedicated to understanding the world and its natural environment, societies, and cultures through the practice of listening.

I have brought excerpts from 7 episodes from the 5th season of my conscient podcast that relate to the theme of the 2024 edition: ‘listening to the weave of time’. 

e157 sonic research group (part 1)

Hildegard Westerkamp

• The most interesting part to me is to discover what we're not listening to and why we are not doing that. I think it's wonderful that I've had the chance to learn this listening from so early on where you're trained to listen to the environment and at that time it was more about listening to the sounds of the environment and critiquing them, analyzing them, trying to understand them. To me that subject has widened hugely and really has to do about listening in general and trying to understand why we are listening to things and why we're not listening to things. And so it becomes a political, social, cultural question on every level and when a society has a crisis, it's often really good to observe what we really don't want to listen to and who we are listening to and how we combine that. And I feel we are in a stage of real crisis right now. And that's why this subject matter has taken on great significance now. 

e162 terri hron - an ecological lens

• I think as musicians we have particular concerns that perhaps looking at those through an ecological lens can be helpful. One of them is to think about the structures of funding which allow us to operate and to maybe reconsider them because they might change. And to be open to that change and to find solutions. And those solutions might be that we need to advocate for other kinds of support, if we still want to advocate for support, or to engage in other types of activities to make a living. Maybe that sounds a little bit defeatist, but I am trying to think in a very pragmatic way about what might be helpful and useful to create a greater sense of security and happiness in the future.
• I think the only thing that I can do is to try and live with as much integrity as I can and, and avoid participating in the things that I consider to be the least aligned with my values.

e170 sonic research group (part 2)

Milena Droumeva

• Soundwalking is always like magic. It is a magical experience. It is so simple, Hildi, as you said, and it’s as much about listening to sounds or listening to absences of sound. It's not very typical in our lives. We don't live the kinds of lives that require this kind of presence. And so it’s restorative for me and calms my spirit. But also it's such a reminder each and every time I do a soundwalk of the power of just simply listening and opening up that register with all of its span from appreciation to analytics, to criticality and to spirituality. 

Jacek Smolicki

• What differentiates us from machines is historical consciousness. Algorithms are operating using biased and skewed data without considering the context within which this data has emerged. Our role as educators is to be reminders of historical context that this whole machinery is digesting and using it to produce futures comes from.

Barry Truax 

• I'm still cautiously optimistic that we could still use those same techniques that we've used in the past to create a more creative, analytical and critical listener.

Hildegard Westerkamp

• A group can become a community even though we don't know each other, which creates an atmosphere of willingness to be open and grounded inside ourselves. We can get to that energetic place because we've slowed down.

Freya Zinonieff

• A music teacher at Columbia University was teaching John Cage’s 4’.33’’ and made a big fuss about how they couldn't teach that class because there was a loud protest outside the classroom and all she could hear was ‘from the river to the sea’. She said, okay, this just means we can't teach this now because it’s ruining 4’.33’’. We have to continue reminding ourselves and others that listening is a project and we need to learn together how to listen to what is actually there.

e174 julie andreyev - more-than-human creativity

• As an artist and educator, I see that this moment calls for a way of working through decolonization and forging a path of care. I like to think of this through multispecies communities so that, as humans, we're surrounded by more than human life, even in our urban environments. This path of care for our multi-species, communities that make up the neighborhood, the community, and ultimately the earth is where I see my call for research and practice. 

e175 sabine breitsameter - an aesthetic of care

• Listening can teach us to appreciate our environment in a critical sense, but also in a kind of admiration for it. If we admire something because we think it has a depth or it has a beauty or some interesting aspects, we want to keep it, we want to foster it.

e178 podium 2024 - what more can we sing and do?

Deantha Edmunds

• It is taking far too long for us to acknowledge the damage we have done to the world's water and to indigenous people and to take action : truth, reconciliation, change. Scientists have discovered that some whale songs actually evolve over time. It is my hope that the choirs who perform this work with me and all those who hear it will refuse to let what the whales are saying be lost in the ocean and will join their song in calling for respect and reciprocity.

Elise Naccarato

• Stay humble, keep listening and keep learning. That is how we will use choral music as a way to advocate and change the environmental crisis that we're facing

e180 mary edwards - capturing the beauty and terror of reality

• We're all going to be affected by the same outcome. When I went up to Svalbard (Norway), I went with the intention of also capturing the beauty and the terror of the reality of these changes and how they can be at once fascinating to listen to, but also devastating to the environment.
• Listening is an inherent part of what I do. It’s not just creating sound and music, but raising awareness. If we listen more intently to our environment, we can understand the health of our environment.

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END NOTES FOR ALL EPISODES

Hey conscient listeners, 

I’ve been producing the conscient podcast as a learning and unlearning journey since May 2020 on un-ceded Anishinaabe Algonquin territory (Ottawa). 

It’s my way to give back.

In parallel with the production of the conscient podcast and its francophone counterpart, balado conscient, I I publish free ‘a calm presence' Substack see https://acalmpresence.substack.com.

Your feedback is always welcome at [email protected] and/or on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Threads, BlueSky, Mastodon, Tik Tok, YouTube and Substack.

Share what you like, etc

I am grateful and accountable to the earth and the human labour that provided me with the privilege of producing this podcast, including the toxic materials and extractive processes behind the computers, recorders, transportation systems and infrastructure that made this production possible. 

Claude Schryer

Latest update on July 8, 2025