top of page

R. Murray Schafer

Raymond Murray Schafer CC is a Canadian composer, writer, music educator and environmentalist perhaps best known for his World Soundscape Project, concern for acoustic ecology, and his book The Tuning of the World.

 

"A soundscape is any collection of sounds, almost like a painting is a collection of visual attractions," says composer R. Murray Schafer. "When you listen carefully to the soundscape it becomes quite miraculous." David New's portrait of the renowned composer becomes a lesson unto itself, gracing viewers (and listeners) with a singular moment of interactive subjectivity.

​

Murray Schafer

Murray Schafer: Listen

"A soundscape is any collection of sounds, almost like a painting is a collection of visual attractions," says composer R. Murray Schafer.

 

"When you listen carefully to the soundscape it becomes quite miraculous."

 

David New's portrait of the renowned composer becomes a lesson unto itself, gracing viewers (and listeners) with a singular moment of interactive subjectivity.

​

Snowforms

"As the urban populations of the world grow, the forces and charms of nature are more distanced from increasing numbers or people. But I do not write such works out of nostalgia; they are a very real part of my life...

 

Snowforms began as a series of sketches of snowdrifts, seen out the window of my Monteagle Valley farmhouse. I took these sketches and traced a pentagram over them.

 

The notes of the piece emerged wherever the lines of the sketch and the stave crossed. Of course I modified the drawings as necessary since the work is primarily a piece of music and only secondarily a set of sketches. I printed the work so that the shapes of the snow were white over a pale blue background"

- R. Murray Schafer

bottom of page