Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group 2017 Workshop and Conference
6th – 11th September, 2017
Camp Cypress, Baradine, NSW.

AFAE Members are preparing to venture deep into the Pilliga forest for a week of listening to the natural world – sharing the skills and experience of nature sound recording for a variety of purposes, ranging from scientific research, to artistic responses.

The event is hosted by the Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group at Camp Cypress near Baradine, on the edge of the Pilliga forest, the largest expanse of contiguous dry woodland in inland NSW, and a wonderful area for birdlife and wildlife sound recording.

The workshop will be a week of expert presentations and discussion, covering all aspects of wildlife and environmental sound recording, including:

• equipment (microphones, recorders etc) and recording techniques
• fieldcraft and associated natural history skills
• editing, audio processing and archiving
• species identification and repertoire
• environmental listening and cultural responses
• Practical sessions of field tuition and recording opportunities will be scheduled in nearby Pilliga forest and other natural areas.

Workshop facilitators include AFAE President Dr Leah Barclay, AFAE founding member Dr Ros Bandt and AFAE board member Andrew Skeoch who is the president of the Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group. The week will also feature presentations from  Jennifer Ackerman – science writer and author of ‘The Genius of Birds’, ecoacoustics specialist Michael Towsey and a range of other presenters you can explore here.  

The workshop and conference is suitable for beginners, field naturalists, student and professional researchers, artists/musicians and anyone interested in engaging with the natural world more deeply through listening and acoustic ecology.

Download the program here or explore further information about the program and registration on the Australian Wildlife Sound Recording Group website. 

AFAE founding member and internationally renowned Australian sound artist Dr Ros Bandt has created a stunning 2 CD set of original  sound works fusing old and new,  east and west influences with her cross-cultural modern Australian spike fiddle, the tarhu. This extraordinarily resonant instrument probes 6 world heritage sites in Europe and the Pacific, accompanies poetry in ancient Greek,  Persian and Maltese, and connects with artists from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Turkey, the US, Greece, Crete, Germany,  Australia, Thailand, and Samoa. She investigates the environmental issues of global warming in the arctic, water usage, fishing and farming ethics, and the biosphere reserves of America. The connections trace back to the worlds oldest bird, the lyrebird and the longest continuing culture on earth in Australia. Ros Bandt is at once a composer, sound artist and skilled musician, as at home in the concert hall, the gallery, the electro-acoustic studio, the internet or the bush as these CDs show. The works created over a decade interpret each acoustic space individually, from improvised solos and duets to elaborate electro-acoustic symphonies and award winning multi- channel works remixed.  But it's the sonorous worlds she creates that are so worth the deep listening they invite.
 
Tarhu Connections launched on May 19th 2016 at the 14th century Venetian Sabbionara Gate in Hania, Crete at the opening of the collaborative exhibition Listening through the Walls, one of the tracks on the CD. It is in Hania that the Bandt developed her unique style on the tarhu informed by 30 years of performing , recording, sound research and acoustic ecology practice. Seven tracks were made at this incredible location.  Purchase the double album online via the Hearing Places website. 

In support of the project Bandt produced the ABC Radio Feature ‘Listening through the walls’ commissioned for Soundproof in 2016 which can be streamed online here. This radio feature explores one of the most ancient city states, Hania in the northwest of Crete, where walls have been built, destroyed, reformed and recycled according to its chequered history. It's one of the most contested morcels of land—changing hands from the Greeks, to the Christians, the Ottomans and Venetians, all before the two world wars. In this radio piece, Bandt collaborated with two local Haniot artists to take the people of Hania on an acoustic walk and discover through listening the changing identity of this fascinating town.

Ros Bandt began making multi-channel sound works in 1972 and has been a pioneer in the interdisciplinary possibilities of acoustic ecology both in Australia and internationally. 

Anthony Magen is a Landscape Architect and Acoustic Ecologist navigating the ecotones of culture. This navigation is facilitated through the construction of the built environment in a professional capacity, through pedagogy, soundwalking as an active artistic practice and an ongoing commitment to the World and Australian Forums for Acoustic Ecology. Anthony Magen’s practice includes the presentation of neorealist abstractions in ‘live’ situations, small-scale interventions, audiovisual installations and photographic presentations facilitated throughout Australia. Anthony is the previous president of the AFAE. Explore the feature on Anthony's work at Liquid Architecture.