The 'Great Animal Orchestra' brings the wild rumpus of nature to art museums

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The 'Great Animal Orchestra' brings the wild rumpus of nature to art museums

Transcript¹

Audiences at The Great Animal Orchestra at the current exhibit in Salem, Mass.

Kathy Tarantola/? 2021 Peabody Essex Museum

Your imagination does the work at The Great Animal Orchestra – you just sit in a dark room and listen.

Currently at the Peabody Essex museum in Salem, Mass., through May 22, the exhibition immerses visitors into soundscapes from remote parts of the planet: seven of them, from the tropics to the tundra². No wildlife footage accompanies this symphony of wild animals. It's audio first, in a visually overstimulating world.

"The basic message is that the soundscapes of the natural world are the voices that we need to hear in order to moderate our behavior," says the show's creator, Bernie Krause. He's spent decades traversing the globe and collecting thousands of hours of animal habitat recordings³ as a soundscape ecologist.

His 2012 book, The Great Animal Orchestra, helped germinate⁵ this traveling museum show. Before this iteration of his career, Krause was a pioneering musician in multiple genres⁶. Born in Detroit in 1938, he started playing the violin at age five. By the time he was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, he had already performed professionally with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

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"I worked my way through school playing guitar as a backup musician at Motown," Krause tells NPR. "After I graduated, I came out to Boston and The Weavers⁷ were performing and giving concerts around the Boston area."

The seminal⁸ folk group was looking for a replacement⁹ for the seat of Pete Seeger; Krause auditioned¹⁰ and got the job. He sang and played banjo and guitar with The Weavers until the group disbanded in 1964. Then, enchanted¹¹ by new frontiers of musical possibility, he headed west.

At Mills College in Oakland, Calif., Krause studied with the acclaimed¹² avant-garde composers Pauline Oliveros and Karlheinz Stockhausen and became a force in the burgeoning¹³ field of electronic music. With musician Paul Beaver¹⁴, he helped introduce Moog synthesizers to popular music and film.

"We did a lot of work with major groups — with The Doors, the Byrds, The Monkees. We did work with George Harrison, Frank Zappa," Krause recalls. Krause's film work includes classics such as Rosemary's Baby and Apocalypse Now. He programmed much of the latter's score and worked on its memorable¹⁵ "Ride of the Valkyries" scene. "Shirley Walker actually played the keyboard. I'm not a great keyboardist," he says.

Before Paul Beaver died in 1975 of a brain hemorrhages while giving a concert in Los Angeles, he worked with Krause on a pioneering album called In A Wild Sanctuary¹⁶, an early example of ambient music.

"Paul refused to go outside to record, which left that task to me," Krause says. "And I was terrified of animals. I grew up in a home in the Midwest that didn't allow dogs or cats or a goldfish. That was dangerous to my mom. Germs and all of that. I wanted to get over that fear."

So one autumn afternoon, Krause toted a still-new portable analog¹⁷ recorders to a heavily wooded public park north of San Francisco. His life was forever altered when he slipped on his headphones, took a breath and focused on the sounds of nature. "It wasn't noise," he explains. "It was a collection of sounds that felt so good that I just relaxed immediately."

Krause felt affirmed, soothed¹⁸, awakened¹⁹. In the late 1970s, he earned a Ph.D. in marine²⁰ bioacoustics at the experimental Union Institute and University in Cincinnati, Ohio and started recording⁴ what he calls biophonies – the collective sounds of living organisms in their biomes - in such far flung locales ranging from the boreal forests of Algonquin Provincial²¹ Park in Ontario, Canada to the savannas²² and shrublands of Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou National Park.

"This is really cool because you're gonna hear the baboons²³ barking at a granite²⁴ wall that creates an echo," whispers Jane Winchell, in the shadowed room of The Great Animal Orchestra at the Peabody Essex. Winchell, who directs the museum's Art & Nature Center, brought the show here after seeing it in 2017 at the Fondation Cartier in Paris where, she says, it transfixed audiences.

"It's just this miraculous²⁵ composition. It really is like a piece of music with different movements," she enthuses.

Bernie Krause calls these soundscapes "yoga for the ears." Listening to animals he says, connects us to something ancient and vital about being human.

"These sounds are part of our DNA," he explains. "What we are hearing resonates with that atavistic moment in our lives when our ancestors heard these sounds and lived by them. In that way, it reconnects us to the natural, to the living world around us. But let me tell you, the further we draw away from that source of our lives, the more pathological we become as a culture. You don't believe that? Watch the news."

Or listen to it, he says. Never before have we been more connected to constant sound – in our cars, our earbuds, our phones. "And disconnected at the same time," Krause says. "Basically, we have to learn to be quiet."

So, if you cannot go to Salem, Mass., and experience The Great Animal Orchestra yourself, try something right now. Take off your headset. Turn off your radio or streaming device. Go outside, and listen.

Even if you're in the middle of a city, you can hear it. It may be far away, but the Great Animal Orchestra is there.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 tundra   

n.苔原，冻土地带

参考例句：

• The arctic tundra is at the top of the world around the North Pole.北极冻原是指北极点周边的地区，是世界最高的地方。
• There is a large amount of methane gas under the Siberian tundra.西伯利亚的冻土地带之下有大量的甲烷气体。

3 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

4 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

5 germinate   

v.发芽；发生；发展

参考例句：

• Seeds will not germinate without water.没有水，种子是不会发芽的。
• Can thin and hollow seeds germinate?瘦瘪的种子能够发芽吗？

6 genres   

（文学、艺术等的）类型，体裁，风格( genre的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Novel and short story are different genres. 长篇小说和短篇小说是不同的类别。
• But confusions over the two genres have a long history. 但是类型的混淆，古已有之。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

7 weavers   

织工，编织者( weaver的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The Navajo are noted as stockbreeders and skilled weavers, potters, and silversmiths. 纳瓦霍人以豢养家禽，技术熟练的纺织者，制陶者和银匠而著名。
• They made out they were weavers. 他们假装是织布工人。

8 seminal   

adj.影响深远的；种子的

参考例句：

• The reforms have been a seminal event in the history of the NHS.这些改革已成为英国国民保健制度史上影响深远的一件大事。
• The emperor's importance as a seminal figure of history won't be diminished.做为一个开创性历史人物的重要性是不会减弱的。

9 replacement   

n.取代，替换，交换；替代品，代用品

参考例句：

• We are hard put to find a replacement for our assistant.我们很难找到一个人来代替我们的助手。
• They put all the students through the replacement examination.他们让所有的学生参加分班考试。

10 auditioned   

vi.试听（audition的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• None of the actresses we have auditioned is suitable. 我们试听的这些女演员都不合适。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• What is that, from some script you auditioned for in the '40s? 什么玩意儿是你40年代试的那些剧本吗？ 来自电影对白

11 enchanted   

adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• She was enchanted by the flowers you sent her. 她非常喜欢你送给她的花。
• He was enchanted by the idea. 他为这个主意而欣喜若狂。

12 acclaimed   

adj.受人欢迎的

参考例句：

• They acclaimed him as the best writer of the year. 他们称赞他为当年的最佳作者。
• Confuscius is acclaimed as a great thinker. 孔子被赞誉为伟大的思想家。

13 burgeoning   

adj.迅速成长的，迅速发展的v.发芽，抽枝( burgeon的现在分词 )；迅速发展；发（芽），抽（枝）

参考例句：

• Our company's business is burgeoning now. 我们公司的业务现在发展很迅速。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• These efforts were insufficient to contain the burgeoning crisis. 这些努力不足以抑制迅速扩散的危机。 来自辞典例句

14 beaver   

n.海狸，河狸

参考例句：

• The hat is made of beaver.这顶帽子是海狸毛皮制的。
• A beaver is an animals with big front teeth.海狸是一种长着大门牙的动物。

15 memorable   

adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的

参考例句：

• This was indeed the most memorable day of my life.这的确是我一生中最值得怀念的日子。
• The veteran soldier has fought many memorable battles.这个老兵参加过许多难忘的战斗。

16 sanctuary   

n.圣所，圣堂，寺庙；禁猎区，保护区

参考例句：

• There was a sanctuary of political refugees behind the hospital.医院后面有一个政治难民的避难所。
• Most countries refuse to give sanctuary to people who hijack aeroplanes.大多数国家拒绝对劫机者提供庇护。

17 analog   

n.类似物，模拟

参考例句：

• The analog signal contains high-frequency video information,which helps make up the picture.模拟信号包括有助于构成图像的高频视频信息。
• The analog computer measures continuously,without proceeding step by step.模拟计算机不是一步一步地进行，而是连续地进行量度。

18 soothed   

v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦

参考例句：

• The music soothed her for a while. 音乐让她稍微安静了一会儿。
• The soft modulation of her voice soothed the infant. 她柔和的声调使婴儿安静了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

19 awakened   

v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到

参考例句：

• She awakened to the sound of birds singing. 她醒来听到鸟的叫声。
• The public has been awakened to the full horror of the situation. 公众完全意识到了这一状况的可怕程度。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

21 provincial   

adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人

参考例句：

• City dwellers think country folk have provincial attitudes.城里人以为乡下人思想迂腐。
• Two leading cadres came down from the provincial capital yesterday.昨天从省里下来了两位领导干部。

22 savannas   

n.（美国东南部的）无树平原( savanna的名词复数 )；（亚）热带的稀树大草原

参考例句：

• Therefore the jungles and the savannas know of no juvenile delinquency! 因此，丛林和荒原里没有“少年犯罪。” 来自辞典例句
• My soul flits away into the virgin forests and to the savannas. 我的灵魂飞向森林中的处女地和广漠的平原。 来自互联网

23 baboons   

n.狒狒( baboon的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Baboons could break branches and leaders. 狒狒会折断侧枝和顶梢。 来自辞典例句
• And as nonprimates, they provoke fewer ethical and safety-related concerns than chimps or baboons. 而且作为非灵长类，就不会产生像用黑猩猩或狒狒那样的伦理和安全方面的顾虑。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 医学的第四次革命

24 granite   

adj.花岗岩，花岗石

参考例句：

• They squared a block of granite.他们把一块花岗岩加工成四方形。
• The granite overlies the older rocks.花岗岩躺在磨损的岩石上面。

25 miraculous   

adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的

参考例句：

• The wounded man made a miraculous recovery.伤员奇迹般地痊愈了。
• They won a miraculous victory over much stronger enemy.他们战胜了远比自己强大的敌人，赢得了非凡的胜利。