In the 1960s, Canadian composer, educator, and writer R. Murray Schafer (1933-2021) developed his theory of sound and ecology, founding the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University which generated the international field of acoustic ecology and impacted the fields of acoustic design, architecture, urban planning, music, and sound art. His magisterial 12-part series of environmental music dramas, Patria (1965-2017) put his ecological insights into action in diverse settings — a city park, a wilderness lake, planting and harvesting a community garden. And his radical approach to experiential and environmental music education similarly informed his work in composition and acoustic ecology. Schafer was a prolific and polemical commentator on music in Canada and on Canadian identity; his views were often controversial, and his ideas have been subject to critique. A year after Schafer’s passing on August 14, 2021, it is timely to reconsider Schafer’s legacy in the context of burgeoning theories of sound, music, and ecology, their intersections with critical theories of race, Indigeneity, colonization, and immigration, and of artistic responses to ecological crisis.

Through a public symposium, lecture recital, and book project, we will examine Schafer’s legacy from diverse perspectives, considering both the undoubted originality, importance, and ongoing influence of his ideas, and the many ways in which they have been engaged, taken in new directions, or rejected. How are scholars, educators, and artists working with, and across the grain of, Schafer’s ideas now? How does his polemic stand up in the current social and cultural context in Canada and internationally? And how can we apply his ecological insights and artistic innovations to address the climate crisis?