Matthew Burtner
Sonification of Alaskan Coastal Habitats, with Christina Bonsell
About the Speaker
Matthew Burtner (www.matthewburtner.com) is an Alaskan composer, sound artist and ecoacoustician. He grew up in Naknek, Nuiqsut, and in the Chugach Mountains outside of Anchorage. Matthew studied in the Lower-48 and Europe, always returning to Alaska for the Bristol Bay salmon fishery, and finally completing his Doctorate degree at Stanford University in computer music. He then became a professor at University of Virginia, an exceptional organization which has supported his environmental music research including his work in Alaska for over 20 years. Matthew’s research collaborates closely with science and technology. His ecoacoustic music has been performed in concerts and exhibitions around the world, and featured by organizations such as NASA, the American Geophysical Union (AGU), the BBC, PBS NewsHour, the U.S. State Department under President Obama, and National Geographic. He has published three large-scale intermedia climate change works including the IDEA Award-winning opera, Auksalaq. In 2020, he received an Emmy Award for “Composing Music with Snow and Glaciers,” a feature on his Glacier Music by Alaska Public Media. He holds the position of Eleanor Shea Endowed Chaired Professor of Music at the University of Virginia where he co-directs the Coastal Future Conservatory, an organization bridging research between science, humanities, and music (http://www.coastalconservatory.org). He is also the Founder and Director of the environmental music non-profit organization EcoSono (www.ecosono.org).
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