Annea Lockwood
Home Ground: Sound Mapping PS21
May 16 & 17, 2026 from 12:00 pm—3:00 pm
Listening and sound mapping workshop led by Annea Lockwood
Single day workshop is free and no musical experience is required.
Participants should plan on four self-scheduled mapping sessions across the year.
Commissioned by PS21, Annea Lockwood’s Home Ground is a site-specific work acoustically mapping ten or more environments on the PS21 grounds, carried out by members of the local community. Through repeated visits participants will record the soundscapes of that site, especially at dawn and at dusk across the seasons, using audio/video recording, text, drawing, or other graphics via a sound mapping app.
The project begins with an initial workshop, guided by Lockwood, in which participants explore progressive modes of listening and start to develop a personal language to use in mapping a site. Following the workshop, participants will choose a site on the grounds from which to create their own map, committing to four self-determined listening sessions over the course of a year.
This workshop will held rain or shine. Participants will be asked to walk to PS21 Grounds as they are able. Please wear appropriate clothing and footwear.
The core of the project is that by listening to an environment closely and over time, Spring through Fall, you not only learn the make-up of a site and its ecology, but may also come to sense your part in it – not only how you respond to it but, reciprocally, how or if it responds to your presence e.g. tree frogs quieting when you approach them. From that mutual awareness can come caring. Home Ground is a year-long immersion in the sonic world of a particular small area in the grounds of PS21, thus expanding your personal neighborhood. Over time the sounds ‘native’ to an area become familiar, and accumulate within your sense of that place, like the layers of humus beneath a tree. – Annea Lockwood
Annea Lockwood (b. 1939 in Aotearoa, New Zealand) is known for her explorations of natural acoustic sounds and environments in works ranging from installations to concert music. In recent years, her music has received widespread attention, including a Columbia University Miller Theatre Composer Portrait concert, two feature articles in The New York Times, and a documentary film by director Sam Green. Her sound maps of the Hudson River, the Danube, and the Housatonic River have been widely presented in Europe, the U.K., the United States and Australia, in addition to her instrumental works. Three recent collaborative works – Into the Vanishing Point with new music quartet Yarn/Wire, Becoming Air with avant-garde trumpeter Nate Wooley, and Skin Resonance with percussionist-composer Vanessa Tomlinson – were released on Black Truffle Records. Hearing Studies, co-authored with Ruth Anderson, was published by Open Space in 2021.
Wild Energy, a collaboration with Bob Bielecki focused on atmospheric, mammalian, and geophysical infra and ultrasound, is permanently installed at the Caramoor Center, Katonah. Elwha!, co-composed in 2025 with Claire Chase for flutes and field recordings of the Elwha River, received a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation, and recently premiered at the Kitchen in New York City. Other recent presentations of her work include the Ojai Festival, Big Ears, Other Minds, Queen Elizabeth Hall London, Rainy Days Luxembourg, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Noon to Midnight Festival, Tectonics-Athens, and the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
Lockwood is a recipient of the 2020 SEAMUS Award and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Photo credit: Sam Green
Home Ground is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.