Annea Lockwood (1939, New Zealand) is known for her explorations of natural acoustic sounds and environments, making works on the intersection of body, environment, sound and text – a life’s work that equally highlights acts of generous listening, invitational composition and a hunger for considered experimentation.
Having started studying electronic music in the 1960’s with Gottfried Michael Koenig, learning to synthesize, measure, serialize and edit sounds, at some point she had a major epiphany . When she witnessed a performance with La Monte Young slowly pushing a chair across the floor, emanating an unstable ever-changing but continuous sound.

This was a sound not ‘composed’ by anyone, but it seemed to have an agency of its own, an inherent vitality that could totally engage our ears. From that moment on, she decided to concentrate on working with untreated unaltered sounds, whether coming from the environment, from non-intentional situations or from open instructions to performers, all sounds becoming alive by the act of listening.
Annea Lockwood became a pioneer in the use of field recordings, creating groundbreaking installations like the soundmaps from the Hudson or Danube rivers, or performances like Glass World. Much of her work has been focused on the fluidity of rivers, the vibratory shimmer of oceans and lakes, and the pulsation of waves.
“In general, I experience sound so strongly in and through my body that it brings me a real visceral sense of connection to whatever I’m listening to, and that is probably true for many of us. That, to me, is a powerful embodied, often unconscious reminder that I am not separate from the world around me, and I suspect this is true for many people. And is, in itself, a creative practice.”

In the last decade her environmental works have gained an extra dimension related to the imminent dangers posed by climate change. Also the responsibility her scores give to the performers take on an additional depth. As performers we are asked to respect the sounds, let them come naturally, follow them, not push them around, and also take responsibility for them – to take responsibility for the musical environment and everybody in it – the environment we create, influence and are influenced by.

www.annealockwood.com