Where do you go to listen to your thinking?

Which sounds steer your choice of direction?

A walk in the park is inherently about listening. It is a way we allow a conversation with a friend, as well as our thoughts, ideas, or emotions, to resonate freely.  A path along an edge of water, a park bench, a clearing in the trees—each is its own type of resonator.  And then there is that chink in a wall and the creek stones with water falling through them.  The notch in a dying tree.  A hollow metal handrail faintly ringing.  A cupped hand at an angle to the wind.

Features of the environment insulate the listener: doors, walls and windows, of course, as well as hedges and overhangs, sunken walkways and enclosures. Maybe even clouds?  Materials play a part too.  

How can you make sounds with leaves? With two small round stones?

How many sounds can you make with your feet on different kinds of ‘ground’?

Where along the path can you find a wire to pluck? 

		Find a ringing sound or find a way to make one. 

		Explore the idea of an instrument from scratch.


A walk that is designed for listening might encourage someone to go on and listen more intently to the world; to acknowledge the possibilities for a place being a composition of sounds as much as it is of fauna and flora, sediments, structures, smells, human activity, histories and times of day; and to engage with a place, naturally, as a sound-making being, realizing the potential of a place, its situations and its objects, for becoming instruments in imaginative and otic hands.  

Consider how a microphone, used as an extension of the ear, can get us listening to places otherwise inaccessible.  Imagine what sounds may have been there before you arrived in that place of silence?

Try knowing a place by finding out about its sounds.

Footpath for Otic Ghosts - a Soundwalk by Loren Chasse

"Where once a house was were many houses" —Anis Mojgani

Portland’s inner-northeast neighborhoods were once home to over 200 Black churches. The remaining wooden and brick buildings, ranging from tiny storefronts to imposing brick edifices, are the inspiration for 'Come Sunday'. Created by jazz artist and composer Darrell Grant, 'Come Sunday' is a pilgrimage in sound and time that winds through the King, Humboldt, and Alberta neighborhoods — once the heart of Oregon’s largest Black community. Beginning in DeNorval Unthank Park and culminating at Bethel A.M.E. Church, the oldest continuously operating Black church in Oregon, the soundwalk passes thirteen houses of worship that stand as islands documenting the rich history, hopes, and community ties that wove together a community. Combining oral history, African-American spirituals, poetry, historical texts, jazz piano, new music, and the sounds of the neighborhood, Come Sunday paints an aural portrait of community inspired by the singular institution at its heart — leading the fight for justice, serving the vulnerable, holding the community in good times and bad — the Black church.

"Speak to the Home that was" —Anis Mojgani

Come Sunday - A Soundwalk from DeNorval Unthank Park by Darrell Grant

This land along Nichi'wana (the Columbia River) once held a Native trade center and gathering site near its intersection with the Willamette. Indigenous people from as far away as the territory many now call Alaska, the Dakotas, and the Desert Southwest all came together in this important place. As Indigenous inhabitants here in the Northwest were displaced and treaties were not honored, the land was reshaped and mistreated, taking on several different forms—most recently that of a landfill.

Now the most ethnically and racially diverse Census tract in Oregon, Cully is also the largest neighborhood in Portland. Cully Park is at its heart, and with its Native Gathering Garden and community of caretakers tending the land, it pulses with hope for regeneration and with Indigenous people's past, present, and future. 

This Soundwalk features voices of local Indigenous community members and a recorded performance by Nez Perce drumming group Four Directions.

Heal the Land, Heal the People - A Soundwalk from Cully Park by Sarah Tiedemann

This sound walk is a collection of pieces inspired by trees, many of them with direct connections to the Hoyt Arboretum. This experience is an opportunity to explore everything from the ability of a tree to shed each year; dropping of a part that is no longer needed or useful, to the concept of putting down roots; sonically exploring this idea of settling.

Hoyt Arboretum Soundwalk - A Soundwalk by Andy Akiho

Lithic Fragments is a composed score for field recordings, piano, cello, contrabass, and percussion to be experienced at Powell Butte Nature Park in East Portland. The field recordings were made at Powell Butte during 2021. You can hear the special ecology and environment in each field recording. These sounds are in conversation with scored instrumental elements.

Lithic Fragments: A Soundwalk by Branic Howard For Powell Butte Nature Park

Lisa Volle is a creative force of nature and an operational powerhouse whose leadership has seen Third Angle through tremendous change and growth during her tenure. As she departs for her next adventure, we celebrate 12 memorable years with a little help from the people and the music she's influenced along the way.

Anything But Ordinary, Episode 18: Lisa Volle

Angélica shares a short clip of her latest commission for Third Angle - including the audio from the field recordings that are part of the piece were taken from.

Please enjoy this tiny 30-second taste, then if you're in POrtland, OR - buy your tickets and join us to experience the world premiere of Espacios, objetos, sonidos y tiempo at Little Things on FEB 10 & 11 at 7:30 pm.

tickets at thirdangle.org

Angélica Negrón: A Field Recording Video

Wapato Island Farm - A soundwalk on Sauvie Island by Gerardo Calderon

DB Amorin's long shadow is a 40-minute soundride composition inspired by the sustained yearning to revisit former homes (Kahalu'u, O'ahu; Portland, Oregon) during the COVID-19 lockdown, a longing which over time became its own interior landscape to traverse. Nostalgia for the transition between summer and fall on the Windward side of O'ahu, Hawai'i loomed large over the course of the pandemic. It is a time when the orographic lift of the Ko'olau mountain range creates a type of daily micro-climate with a unique, fleeting ambiance. There, the heaviness of summer’s humidity dissipates, replaced by a deeper iridescence. 

Much like Portland’s brilliant summers that seem to emerge from nowhere and fade just as quickly, these ephemeral environments we long for shift over time, and move into something different. We ache for their return, and when they do we discover what was true about them then may not be true any longer. Spatio-temporal displacement, transitional spaces and the desire to return to that which may no longer be familiar to us serve as points of departure for this layered audio experience. The composition is designed to trace the path of the MAX Red Line from the urban center of Portland to the Portland International Airport: a contemplative space encased in physical movement, the first step towards an unreachable there, a conversion of the present into past and experience into memory.

The audio vignettes presented consist of overlapping synthetic sounds, sonic fabrications and manipulations based on daydreams, half-memories, contradictory language, and the mediated experience of distant places. Riders are welcome to peer into the additional long shadow guide, an extension of the audio composition and experimental narrative that details some of the prompts used as a collaborative score between the artist and generative audio latent diffusion models trained on open source audio libraries.

Although timed for the duration of a ride from the city center to the last stop on the Red Line, listeners are encouraged to experience the audio during still moments on any ride in the TriMet system, to highlight public transportation as a site of communal contemplation, and overlapping individual experiences.

Deep and resonant gratitude to Third Angle New Music and Portland Institute for Contemporary Art for co-presenting long shadow, and to Chloe Alexandra Thompson for audio mastering and eternal support.

long shadow

Your audio guide to Third Angle's show "Atmospheres"

Narrated by:
Sarah Tiedemann, Artistic Director
Will Pyle, Communications Director
Elaina Stuppler, Composer
Daniel Vega, Composer

Atmospheres - Audio Program Notes

Your audio guide to "Glitch"

Narrated by:
Sarah Tiedemann - Artistic Director
Will Pyle - Communications Manager

Glitch Preshow Podcast

“Hagg Lake holds a stillness that speaks in subtle ways, the rustle of leaves, the ripple of water,
the hush between bird calls. I wanted to wrap those sounds around my guitar like a thread
through fabric, weaving a sonic offering to the land and the people who honor it.” — Katherine
Paul

This soundscape is an exploration of Henry Hagg Lake in Oregon, composed as a continuous
piece that unfolds in sections. The music draws inspiration from the lake’s environment,
capturing its rhythms and textures. The piece is meant to be played anywhere around the
lake—whether by the creek, along the trail, or near the water’s edge. It can be experienced in its
entirety or listened to in parts, with each section offering a distinct atmosphere to guide the
listener through different aspects of the landscape.

Soundscape for Hagg Lake  – Soundwalk by Katherine Paul

Third Angle's first recording, featuring the vocal talents of maestro James DePreist, Michele Mariana, and Michael Mendelssohn

The Soldier's March, by Igor Stravinsky

by David Coll
Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music
Third Angle String Quartet
Tony Arnold, soprano

Tony Tony Tony

Please Me, Place Me

by Carlos Simon
Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music
Third Angle String Quartet
Tony Arnold, soprano

Let America Be America Again

by Nina Shekhar
Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music
Third Angle String Quartet
Tony Arnold, soprano

Quirkhead

Overlay is a collective memory soundwalk through Mt. Tabor Park in Portland, Oregon. Created by Portland sound artist Branic Howard and writer Gabi Lewton-Leopold, Overlay leads the listener on a recorded soundwalk through one of Portland’s treasured public spaces. Inspired by the sound works of Janet Cardiff and Max Neuhaus, Overlay collapses and plays with our experience of time. A nonlinear, immersive soundscape emerges as listeners hear the park both in their headphones and in real time. Overlay weaves together the individual memories of anonymous participants, collected and recorded by the artists, to create a shared experience of the park. In an era when people are spending much time alone or only with close friends and family, Overlay inspires connection to community and place.

Overlay - A Soundwalk On Mt. Tabor by Branic Howard

Tanner Springs Park is northwest of downtown Portland, near highways, train stations, and the Willamette River, surrounded by trams for three sides and low-to- high rise residential buildings around four sides. The theme of the park is its wetland history, revealing the scene once alive from the past. Guided by Portland-based composer Yuan-Chen Li, this Soundwalk imagines the process of sedimentation for the participants. Sporadically accompanied by the composer’s "musical signage," the 40-minute guided promenade brings the participants to understand the turbulent sound of traffic activity, the harmony of singing water and raindrops, ending in the joyful discovery and exploration of one’s inner space interacting with different materials built for the park.

Sonic Sedimentation - A Soundwalk in Tanner Springs Park by Yuan-Chen Li

This soundwalk is a mediation for the heart and a reflection on life, death, our connections, and the eternal-ness of our beings. The walk will serve as a reminder that our time on Earth is most precious and every moment is a wonder to be explored. A musical portal into the heart. 

"While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart." - St. Francis of Assisi

Ase - A Soundwalk through Whitaker Ponds Nature Park by Amenta Abioto

Soil to Sand/Sky to River is a co-composition between walker and the surrounding environments. Guided by artist Julie Hammond, walkers will move through St. Johns, from a grassy park tucked just behind a vibrant commercial district to the shore of the Willamette River below. Inspired by soundwalking practices of Hildegard Westerkamp, Christopher Small’s “musicking”, and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writing on interconnection, this soundwalk invites listeners to consider proximity and vantage, ground and grounding, roots and reaching as they playfully pay attention to the earth below and the sky and structures above.

thirdangle

Popular tracks