Audio artist, composer and teacher, Hidegard Westerkamp continues to make significant contributions to the worlds of audio art, acoustics and sound ecology, beginning as a research associate 1973-80 with R. Murray Schafer at the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University (her work fed into Schafer's book The Tuning of the World, 1977). In 1974 she began working as a producer and host at CFRO (Vancouver Cooperative Radio). These two experiences were pivotal to her career. She developed a deep concern about noise and the acoustic environment, and began to see music in a new light. She began to explore the possibilities of recording, processing, and mixing environmental sounds to create compositions in the recording studio. Around the same time, she was influenced by avant-garde composers like Pauline Oliveros and John Cage. Hildegard Westerkamp was a co-ordinator and researcher 1974-5 with the Noise Abatement Project of the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation in Vancouver; she was a researcher 1982 for the Women in Music project at Simon Fraser University, and there taught acoustic communication 1982-91 and worked with Barry Truax for her MA degree. In the 1980s, she developed an interest in music for live performance, and in creating installations and other "composed environments" (sometimes in collaboration) for specific sites. She also began composing soundtracks for radio dramas and film.

Website: http://www.sfu.ca/~westerka/