Initially inspired by Anna Goldsworthy’s article of the same name, The Lost Art of Listening  began by undertaking research into the history of music and sound in society, its role and reason for being, where music has power and meaning and why this is. Further research has been undertaken into the connection between deep listening to nature, wellbeing and its role climate action.

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The research, taken from books, media articles, conversations, interviews and an online survey, informs the content of the smartphone choir parts, the structure and musical content, the choreography of the performance and also the thinking and philosophies underlying the piece. 

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With audience engagement and participation at the forefront of its creative rationale, TLAoL seeks to channel current social and cultural thoughts into a performance piece that speaks for and to many people. As well as the research undertaken, the inclusion of other people’s thoughts and creative input is further explored by utilising their found sounds and field recordings in the creation of the 32 smartphone choir parts. Gathering field recordings from around the world – recordings of traffic from Dehli, children playing in a playground in Poland, a babbling brook from Mexico, as well as sounds recorded, a lot on my mobile phone, during my family road trips around Australia in 2017 & 2021 – TLAoL is a piece about the importance of listening to each other and the world. 

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For the performance of TLAoL (approx. 45min) the audience will be seated in concentric circles around the central prepared grand piano. They will be invited to play an active and choreographed part in the performance by downloading The Lost Art of Listening  app to allow their phone to play an allocated part in the smartphone choir. Beginning playback together and spatially and rhythmically controlled by the pre-composed parts, the smartphone choir creates an in-sync, low-fi, multi-channel speaker system that can explore complex sonic worlds.