Nature’s Orchestra

Nature’s Orchestra follows noted musician and soundscape ecologist Dr. Bernie Krause on a soundscape expedition in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Along with animal voices, including migratory bird songs, the barking of a fox, and a grizzly’s sniff, the expedition records the melting of permafrost and other evidence of climate change. Recording geophonic sounds of winds, melting tundra, cracking ice, and the flowing water are as important for this scientific expedition as recording wildlife.

Nature sounds offer important information about the health of today’s wild habitats and the life within them. Over half of the soundscapes Krause has recorded are now silent or can no longer be heard in their original form. Climate change affects the polar regions at more than twice the rate of change in temperate and tropical regions. Some of its effects can be heard through a comparative study of nature sounds recorded at the same places and time of year—in this case early June—in different years.

Nature’s Orchestra offers a unique marriage of science and art. Krause’s work demonstrates that the origins of music are in the world’s wild places, and that nature sounds provide an important connection to the natural world, as well as to our deepest selves.

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