Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists Translate Nature’s Sonic Landscapes Into an Emotive Spectacle
Recordings of more than 100 species, many from at-risk habitats, feature in the immersive exhibition “The Great Animal Orchestra” at the Peabody Essex Museum.
November 19, 2021
5 minute read
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To the attentive ear, symphonies abound—especially in the wild. Musician and author Bernie Krause has been recording nature’s soundscapes for decades in an ongoing exploration of bioacoustics, the branch of science concerned with the production, transmission, and reception of the sounds made by living organisms. Krause, who discusses his work on Ep. 127 of our At a Distance podcast, has captured more than 5,000 hours of audio created by more than 15,000 terrestrial and marine species in some 2,000 habitats—about half of which, by his estimate, no longer exist due to logging, mining, and other human activities.
