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Professor John Levack Drever

Staff details

Professor John Levack Drever

Position

Professor of Acoustic Ecology and Sound Art Head of the Unit for Sound Practice Research (SPR)

Department

Music

Email

j.drever (@gold.ac.uk)

Bridging sonic arts, acoustics, soundscapes, ecology and human experience through aural diversity.

Pathway Leader for MMus Sonic Arts
Co-Head of SPR – the Unit for Sound Practice Research
Co-Director of LAURA – Leverhulme Trust Aural Diversity Doctoral Research Hub
Deputy Director of CHASE – Consortium for Humanities and Arts in South-East England

Academic qualifications

  • BMus (Hons), University of Wales, Bangor 1995
  • MMus, University of East Anglia 1996
  • PhD, Dartington College of Arts: ‘Phonographies: Practical and Theoretical Explorations into Composing with Disembodied Sound’ 2001
  • Diploma in Acoustics and Noise Control 2012

Teaching and supervision

Supervised & Co-supervised more than 20 doctoral researchers to completion (Dr Carter Weleminsky, Dr Sam Murray, Dr Marie Ohno, Dr Chris DeLaurenti, Dr Gregorio Fontaine, Dr Annie Goh, Dr Claudia Martinho, Dr Tine Blom, Dr James Bulley, Dr Tommaso Perego, Dr Emmanuel Spinelli, Dr Antonis Antoniou, Dr Marcus Leadley, Dr Lucia H. Chung, Dr Ruth Hawkins, Dr Kathrine Sandys, Dr Dawn Scarfe, Dr Tsai-Wei Chen, Dr John Wynne). Examined 34 doctoral awards.

Current PhD supervising:

Ay?e K?klü: Learning to Whistle, Whistling to Learn: Developing an embodied pedagogy of, and with, the endangered whistled language Ku?dili (‘Birdlanguage’) (Lead Supervisor Prof. Tara Page)

Shelley Calhoun-scullion: Immigrant Noise, and the Infrapolitical Space of Michigan (Lead supervisor Dr Holly Rogers, DAAD)

Mattia Cobianchi : Liveable Listenable Cities: inclusive soundscape co-design through creative conflict resolution and urban sound art (Co-supervisors: Lisa Lavia & Prof Jonny Freeman, CHASE/AHRC, CDA with Noise Abatement Society)

Chris Cook: Hearing and listening with dementia: Auraldiversity, sonic ethnography, and personhood? (CHASE/ AHRC).

Nina Danon: Musical Neuroqueering: Expanding Neurodivergence Through Music and Music through Neurodivergence (CHASE/ AHRC).

Konstantinos Damianakis: Sonic Entanglements: Adventures in Molluscan Listening (Co-supervisor Dr Jol Thoms)

Midori Komachi: Takemitsu and the Steel Pavilion: Spatial Timbre as a parameter of composition (Co-supervisor Dr Holly Rogers, CHASE/AHRC)

Sophia Loizou: Irregular territories: sonic fiction as a mode of ecological sound arts practice (Co-supervisor Dr Ayesha Hameed, CHASE/AHRC)

Jiaxi Xie: Diaspora, Collective Memory and War: Exploration of Music and Sound of the Karen at Thai-Burmese Border (Lead supervisor Prof Barley Norton)

Research interests

Bridging sonic arts, acoustics, soundscapes, ecology and urban design, Drever has devised experiences and practice research projects related to sound, environments, listening and hearing in many different contexts and configurations, often in collaboration. He is a member of . Commissions include: Groupe de Recherches Musicales, Paris (1999); Shiga National Museum, Japan (2012); Trumpington Park Primary School, Cambridge (2021-22); IMMA, Dublin (2023); Enclave, Mexico (2023).

Following his PhD at Dartington College of Arts, Drever co-ordinated . In 1998 he co-founded the UK and Ireland Soundscape Community (affiliated with the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology) for whom he chaired Sound Practice (Dartington College of Art 2001), the first conference on soundscapes in the UK.

In 2003 he was AHRC and Arts Council of England, Arts and Science Research Fellow with Centre for Computational Creativity, City University, London, exploring AI and spatial audio performance systems.

Following his acoustic study of the impact of 'ecological' hand dryers on accessibility, Drever calls for a new paradigm for understanding hearing that extends from a medical classification of the otologically normal to a socio-cultural concept of auraltypical, heralding a new agenda of and aural relativism. First presenting this concept at Harvard University in 2013, he subsequently presented and widely published, including the creation of sound works, most recently on asymmetrical spatial perception. With Prof Andrew Hugill he co-edited Aural Diversity (Routledge 2022) and co-directs and .

In 2007 he was a Visiting Scholar at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong, a Visiting Research Fellow at Seian University of Art and Design, Japan, in 2012-13, and a Guest Professor in The Department of Digital Design and Information Studies, Aarhus University in 2016.

Featured publications

2022:
Edited by Drever, John L. and Hugill, Andrew. Routledge. ISBN 9781032025001

2023:
Frontiers for Young Minds. 11:979480

2019:
Organised Sound, 24(1), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

2001:
In: Jane Grant; John Matthias and David Prior, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Sound Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190274054

2022:
The evolving concept of aural diversity was born out of awareness that there is a deeply embedded and intertwined, singular model of hearing at the core of the preponderance of acoustic standards and

Publications and research outputs

Composition

and Lara, Rossana. 2023. .

. 2020. .

. 2019. .

Performance

. 2023. . In: "In Focus: Tim Robinson's Life & Work", The Irish Museum of Modern Art (?ras Nua-Ealaíne na h?ireann) – IMMA, Ireland, 10 August 2023.

and . 2010. . In: "Royal Geographical Society, Institute ofBritish Geographers,Annual InternationalConference", Pavilion Gallery, Royal Geographical Society, United Kingdom.

. 2003. . In: "Magnified Ear", Deptford, United Kingdom, 11 June 2023.

Project

. 2021. .

; ; ; ; ; ; and . 2014. .

; ; Sondergaard, Morten; Stallabrass, Julian; ; ; Munro, Jonathan; Noy, Irene and . 15 - 17 May 2014 .

Audio

. 2023. .

. 2022. .

. 2007. .

Article

and Bharat, Vinita. 2023. Frontiers for Young Minds, ISSN 2296-6846

and Oswald, Alice. 2021. . Interim, 38(3), ISSN 2475-8191

; and . 2021. . Acoustics, 3(1), pp. 118-136. ISSN 2624-599X

Book Section

. 2023. . In: John L. Drever, ed. The Routledge Companion to the Sound of Space. Abingdon: Routledge.

. 2023. . In: John Drever, ed. Magnified Ear. London: APT Gallery & Curating Matters, pp. 9-20. ISBN 9781739731731

; Jauniaux, Eric; Thibaut de Maisiers, Aude and Gélat, Pierre. 2022. . In: John L. Drever and Andrew Hugill, eds. Aural Diversity. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 27-41. ISBN 9781032024998

Broadcast

. 2023. .

Conference or Workshop Item

. 2023. ''. In: Architecture and the Ear. Solus Ceramics, Farringdon, United Kingdom 5 October 2023.

. 2023. ''. In: Regenerative Listening Symposium curated by Lucia Farinati and Brandon LaBelle. Kingston University, United Kingdom 20 July 2023.

. 2023. ''. In: Remembering Tim and Máiréad Robinson. 樱桃视频, United Kingdom 2 July 2023.

Digital

; ; ; ; ; and . 2021. .

. 2009. .

Edited Book

and Hugill, Andrew, eds. 2022. . Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9781032025001

, ed. 2001. . UK and Ireland Soundscape Community.

Edited Journal

; ; and , eds. 2018. , Leonardo Electronic Almanac, 22(3). 1071-4391

Povall, R; ; Hartley, J; Wallen, J and Zakis, R, eds. 2015. , Digital Creativity, 26(1). 1462-6268

, ed. 2007. , Earshot 5, .

Show/Exhibition

and Murdin, Alex. 2022. . In: "Insect Breeding Institute", Trumpington Park Primary School, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Thesis

. 2001. . Doctoral thesis, University of Plymouth

Professional projects

Research projects

1928-2023:
A longitudinal acoustics and soundscape study of London through field recording.

2003-2004: Electronic Music Performance Interfaces that Learn from their Users
Arts Council of England & AHRB Arts and Science Research Fellow with Centre for Computational Creativity, City University

2000-2001: Sounding Dartmoor - a public soundscape study
In collaboration with The Touring Exhibition of Sound Environments (TESE), Aune Head Arts, and the Digital Crowd, University of Plymouth.

Media engagements

2023:
Written and presented by John Drever. Produced by Rami Tzabar. A TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 3.

2023:
Podcast: The Rest Is Just Noise

2018: London Street Noises
Interviewed by David Sillitoe for Today, BBC Radio 4

2020:
Interviewed on Sound and the City, ‘The Urbanist’, monocle.com podcast (2015 & 2020)

2013: High Speed Hand Dryers & Cattle Grids of Dartmoor
Interviewed by David Sillitoe for Today, BBC Radio 4

2009:
BBC World Service

Awards

2023, Tuner of the World, Nominated for Prix Europa, Audio Documentary Category, 2023.
2021, , Winner of the Worst Sound Category, , New BBC Radiophonic Workshop
2019-20, , Special Award for Socially Distanced Public Engagement, Warden’s Annual Public, Engagement Awards 2020, 樱桃视频
1997, Second Prize for Autonomous Art Electroacoustic Music, Musica Nova 97, International Electroacoustic Music Competition, Prague
1996, Special Prize for Electroacoustic Music, Musica Nova 96, International Electroacoustic Music Competition, Prague