Island Soundscape Project
Learning About the World by Listening TO IT
WHAT WE Do
The soundscape—our sonic environment—is at the center of our mission to partner with local cultural and ecological institutions and schools to promote the idea of the soundscape as an element in the understanding, preservation and identity of the various communities of Maine’s coastal regions.
The Island Soundscape Project is a Maine-based arts research collaborative. Our work sits at the intersection of art, ecology, and education. We are inspired by the idea that through listening we can gain a unique understanding of the world we inhabit, one that can both complement and contrast with the world we see.
WHO WE ARE
N.B.Aldrich
N.B.Aldrich is a New Media artist, reformed musician, and educator residing in Sedgwick, Maine, USA, who creates installation, performance and acousmatic art. He is an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Maine and cofounder of the Island Soundscape Project. He has had work shown internationally at such venues as Artists Space, Engine 27, Art Interactive, the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum, the Festival de Arte Sonore, Hipersonica Festival, The National Museum of Singapore, the Optica Festival, Dance Theatre Workshop, Bates College Museum of Art and many others.
KAREN beeftink
Dr. Karen Beeftink is an educator and soundscape researcher who lives in Machias, Maine. She is Associate Professor in Outdoor Recreation and Leadership at the University of Maine at Machias where she teaches courses focused on outdoor recreation programming, management, and outdoor leadership. She has collaborated on soundscape research in Patagonia and is on the board of the Downeast Coastal Conservancy, a nonprofit committed to conserving essential habitat and connecting people to coastal and forested environments. Karen is excited to work with the ISP to help connect people with natural environments through the practice of active listening.
steve norton
Steve Norton is a sound artist, musician, researcher and educator living in Orono, Maine. He is focused on understanding the world by listening to it. His practice is focused on field recording and soundscape composition, tapping into his life-long interest in biology, ecology and the outdoors. His field-recorded materials are used in soundscape study, electroacoustic composition, and performance and presentation contexts. Steve is co-founder of the Island Soundscape Project and a board member of the Bangor Land Trust.
Projects & partnerships
Projects & partnerships
AUDIO POSTCARDS FROM MAINE (2026)
The ISP was invited by Maine Public Radio to generated a series of ‘audio postcards’ from various locations in Maine. These were designed to be aired as an interlude between various broadcast segments. Audio Postcards from Maine began airing in the summer of 2026.
SOUNDMARKS (2025-2026)
Soundmarks is an immersive audio installation that can be reconfigured to fit in a variety of presentational formats. It is both a research project and a work of art. A data-base of sounds were recorded over two and a half years (and still growing) at various Maine Coast Heritage Trust properties from Brunswick to Lubec. That data-base is rendered as a collage generated by a custom computer program. As such, this piece can be thought of as a compression of the sonic experiences available to preserve visitors. It outlines the contours of Maine’s unique coastal soundscape and is intended to provide an opportunity to contemplate its importance. Soundmarks premiered at The Sedgwick First Baptist Churchby kind invitation of the Sedgwick-Brooklin Historical Society and subsequently could be heard at the Dorr Museum of Natural History on the campus of the College of the Atlantic.
5 PRESERVES (2024)
5 Preserves is an audio-video gallery exhibition documenting moments in time at five different MCHT preserves, presenting each as a vignette. The five vignettes create a repeating reel, which might be thought of as a sort of ambient media art, equal parts witness to place and invitation to observe the world in sharp focus. 5 Preserves premiered at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts Center for Community Programs and was presented in partnership with Haystack, MCHT and Island Heritage Trust.
LISTENING AS LAND CONSERVATION (2023-ongoing)
The ISP, partnering with Maine’s largest land conservation organization, Maine Coast Heritage Trust (MCHT), is helping to expand our understanding of the sonic nature and richness of their land holdings, and to then communicate these to their visiting public and to other land conservation organizations. To accomplish this, we are regarding and engaging MCHT’s soundscape riches as community, educational, aesthetic and artistic resources to be documented and worked with.
A CRANBERRY ISLES SOUNDSCAPE (2022)
Undertaken in collaboration with the Great Cranberry Island Historical Society, A Cranberry Isles Soundscape was composed from audio materials gathered, during 2022, on all of the five islands which make up Maine’s Cranberry Isles township. The four-channel sound piece was installed in the Historical Society’s museum and can heard there during regular operating hours.
TWO RUMFORDS (2020)
Commissioned in 2020 as part of the Architectural League of New York’s American Roundtable project, Two Rumfords is a soundscape composition juxtaposing two distinct yet important sonic environments available in the region known as River Valley along the Androscoggin River in Maine. The piece is evocative of the tensions of modern, industrial life in a rural area of undeveloped mountains, lakes and streams.
public presentations
public presentations
The Island Soundscape Project has given many public lecturers, workshops and presentations on soundscape ecology and its possible applications to regional land conservation.
Here is an abbreviated list:
The Bangor Land Trust
The Blue Hill Heritage Trust
The Blue Humanities Forum
The Climate Change Institute
College of the Atlantic
The Darling Marine Center
George Stevens Academy
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
The Living Labs Institue
Maine Coast Heritage Trust
The Maine Land Trust Network
The Sedgwick Public Library
The University of Maine IMRC Center
The University of Maine at Machias
The Versant Power Astronomy Center
COLLABORATORS
COLLABORATORS
We could not possibly do what we do without the many collaborators who have helped us along the way.
Thank you:
Elle Azul
Adrianna Cavacanti
Eeshita Kapadiya
Ella MacDonald
Luke McKinney
Zach Poff
Merrilee Schoen
Sabrina Sudol
The Great Cranberry Isles Historical Society
Haystack Mountain School of Crafts
Maine Coast Heritage Trust
The Sedgwick Brooklin Historical Society
The University of Maine Office of Research Development