Bernie Krause Bio
Since 1968, Dr. Bernie Krause has
traveled the world recording and
archiving the sounds of creatures and
environments large and small.
Working at the research sites of Jane
Goodall (Gombe, Tanzania), Biruté
Galdikas (Camp Leakey, Borneo), and
Dian Fossey (Karisoke, Rwanda), he
identified the concept of biophony
(a/k/a The Niche Hypothesis) based on
the
relationships
of
individual
creatures to the total biological soundscape within a given habitat. Dr. Krause was
Scientific Director (appointed by NOAA) of the operation that rescued Humphrey
the humpback whale from the Sacramento Delta (1985) using processed feeding
sounds of the same species to lure him to the ocean. Through his company, Wild
Sanctuary, he has recorded over 50 natural soundscape CDs, and creates interactive
environmental sound sculpture commissions for museums and other public spaces
throughout the world. Utilizing proprietary delivery technology, his sound
sculpture commissions can be heard at the American Museum of Natural History
(Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC), the Houston Museum of Natural
Science, the Chicago Science Museum, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and
Research Center (near Mystic, CT), the California Academy of Sciences, the Flint
River Center in Albany, Georgia, Natural World Museum (SF), and five new
installations at the World Financial Center (NYC opening 6 October 2006). Krause is
currently commissioned to prepare a series of tropical and sub-tropical rainforest
installations for the new California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park
scheduled to open in the Fall of 2008. During his life as a professional studio
musician, he replaced Pete Seeger in the Weavers (1963), and with his late music
partner, Paul Beaver, introduced the synthesizer to pop music and film. Their work
can be heard on over 250 albums and 135 feature films released between 1967 and
1980.
For the past 15 years, Dr. Krause had led bioacoustic expeditions throughout Alaska,
Africa, the Amazon, Indonesia, and locations throughout western and eastern North
America. He was also a key figure in implementing natural soundscapes as a
resource for the National Park Service and has authored the educational manual for
the NPS educational staff which resulted in his current book/CD, Wild Soundscapes:
Discovering the Voice of Natural World (Wilderness Press, 2002). Krause is a
contributor to the BioMusic Project funded by the National Science Foundation, and
a research and sound arts project related to healing sounds sponsored by Harvard
Medical School.
Krause recently returned from a trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge collecting
soundscapes from three different sites the material from which will be utilized for
science and the arts. Supported by Harvard Institute for Music & Brain Science,
Stanford, the University of Utah, LucasFilm, and Google, among others, this work
will be experienced in a number of public venues.
Examples of his soundscapes can be heard by visiting the Wild Sanctuary web site
at: http://www.wildsanctuary.com/greatamerican.html and follow the prompts to
90 second MP3 examples of each of the 50 CDs from different venues. Information
about
Google
Earth
Soundscape
zooms
can
be
found
at:
http://earth.wildsanctuary.com/index2.html