Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology

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Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology

The Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology is a non-profit organization in the U.S. dedicated to education & public engagement with the acoustic environment.

09/02/2026

Join us this weekend for the final event in our 2026 Summer Soundwalks in the Parks!! and will lead “The Gift Is Present Presence” at Big Marsh Park, located at 11559 S Stony Island Ave. We will meet at the covered meeting area next to the Ford Calumet Environmental Center. RSVP at the link in our bio. We hope you can join us for one last soundwalking experience this summer.

The walk begins at 5pm this Saturday, September 5th, going until 7pm.

Special shoutout to , who has designed the graphics for the entire series! We are huge fans of her work and her designs help to make each soundwalk such a special event.

Chicago Park District

09/01/2026

On Saturday, September 19th, The Midwest Society for Acoustic Ecology (MSAE) presents Listening Out Loud, our inaugural celebration of Acoustic Ecology and benefit event! Taking place at Experimental Sound Studio, this afternoon long festival will present a soundwalk featuring the augmented listening tools of Hanbing Liang, a presentation of 8-channel acousmatic works by Barry Truax, Christopher DeLaurenti, and Hildegard Westerkamp, and a silent auction with a wide variety of items.

Come out to support listening across environments and cultures in the Midwest! The funds raised at this event will help support MSAE’s programming and mission for 2027, enabling us to continue presenting engaging soundwalks, educational events, and grantmaking programs to help contribute to the worldwide study of acoustic ecology. The event will also feature MSAE’s Annual General Meeting, where members and board members discuss our shared future. We hope you can join us! The festival begins at 1:30pm. Experimental Sound Studio is located at 5925 Ravenswood Ave. RSVP at the link in our bio.

08/26/2026

Meet our teaching artists for next week’s soundwalk, “The Gift Is Present Presence”, at Big Marsh Park, 11559 S Stony Island Ave, on Saturday, September 5th at 5pm. We will meet at the covered meeting area next to the Ford Calumet Environmental Center. and are longterm collaboraters with MSAE and we are excited to have them back this summer! RSVP today at the link in our bio.

Sharkey (Sara) Zalek is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores trauma, resilience, and transformation through performance and somatic research. Named a Chicago Esteemed Artist (2022) and 3Arts Make a Wave Awardee (2017), they have taught for 15 years and curated/performed at venues including the Chicago Cultural Center, Links Hall, Elastic Arts, and Urban Guild in Kyoto, Japan.

Norman W. Long (b. 1973, Chicago, IL) is an artist/composer focusing on memory, space, and sound. He holds Master's degrees from the San Francisco Art Institute and Cornell University. Recipient of a 3Arts Award for Sound Art (2012) and a ThreeWalls RaD Lab Fellowship, his work has been featured at Experimental Sound Studio, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Links Hall, and EMS Elektronmusikstudion in Sweden.

08/23/2026

We had an amazing time collaborating with Chicago Black-crowned Night Heron Project and Mouse Arts and Letters Club to present a workshop on soundscape composition with field recordings from the Black-crowned Night Heron. Thanks to all attended and contributed to this event!!

08/22/2026

Our partnership with Forest Preserve District of Cook County continues next week! Sound Artist and MSAE Board Member Norman W. Long will lead us in an exploration of the soundscape via the trails of the Sagawau Environmental Learning Center, located at 12545 West 111th St in Lemont, IL. Ages 13 & Up. Happening on Saturday, August 29 from 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm. We have greatly been enjoying the soundwalks around various Forest Preserves in Cook County, and we hope you can join us for this free event!

08/17/2026

What an amazing soundwalk with Deirdre Harrison and Avreeayl Ra along the beautiful Lake Michigan shoreline last month! Although the event had to be rescheduled due to poor air quality, we were still able to host a small but mighty contingent of walkers, who reflected on the sounds of childhood past and present. It's always a special experience to hear Avreeayl's stories and reminscences, having engaged in a practice of sound-making in Jackson Park and along the waterfront for many years.

08/12/2026

It’s been a wonderful summer of listening, sounding, and walking together in the Chicago Park District. Next month we will present the final event in our 2026 Summer Soundwalks in the Parks, “The Gift Is Present Presence”, led by N.w. Long and Sharkey. Happening on Saturday, September 5th, at 5pm, at Big Marsh Park.

How do we know what to recover, and when are we ready to take action? The moment between knowing and not knowing leaves us more in the present, where we discover our unifying force in silence and reverence to the listening. Join us as we walk Big Marsh’s expansive and recovering landscape. In this simple act of slow walking, we find our presence together, immersed in subtle soundscapes often lost to our agenda and veracity of speaking. As a silent mass, we listen outward and inward for layers of sounds most often tuned out or discounted, such as points of unity, resonance, dissonance, and divergent noises.
Big Marsh Park is located at 11559 S Stony Island Ave. We will meet at the covered meeting area next to the Ford Calumet Environmental Center.

nightoutintheparks soundart acousticecology

08/05/2026

Join us this Saturday for a soundwalk with Eric Leonardson at the Trailside Museum! Continuing our partnership with Forest Preserves of Cook Co.. We hope to see you there for this free event, at 738 Thatcher Ave, beginning at 10am.

08/03/2026

What an amazing time last weekend with Mauricio López F. at River Park! He led “Arrival Acoustics: From Confusion to Path-Making” as part of our 2026 Summer Soundwalks in the Parks.

08/01/2026

Our soundwalk this morning has been rescheduled to next Saturday due to rain. We hope you can join us then.

Address

Chicago, IL

Telephone

+17733425012

Website

https://mwsae.org/

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