Beijing Sound Art Museum with Colin Chinnery

This episode features a conversation on Beijing's urban soundscape with Colin Chinnery, an artist and curator based in China. Chinnery is a co-founder of Sound Art Museum in Beijing. This museum opened to the public in 2023, and it offers visitors a history of the city through sounds. Sound Art Museum is an immersive space, which also features natural soundscapes, languages, and music from around the world. In today’s episode, Colin discusses the importance of sound for knowing and understanding a city, while listening to different examples of recordings from old and new Beijing. Colin talks about his journey to create this 6000-square-meter space, his plans for the museum, and the value and significance of careful listening. 

The recording of Xin Fengxia singing "Liu Qiao’er" comes courtesy of the Chinese Database for Traditional Music. The song "On a Mound" by the band Xue Wei was provided by Colin Chinnery. All other audio clips and field recordings included in this episode are courtesy of Sound Art Museum. In addition to a short excerpt included in the conversation, the episode concludes with the full song《都塔尔弹唱》being performed on the dutar by Abdulla Majnun.