Scottish Soundscape Prize

The 51st International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering was held at the Scottish Event Campus (SEC) in Glasgow on 21-24 August 2022. The theme was Noise Control in a more Sustainable Future. As part of this theme, the Scottish Soundscape prize was launched, sponsored by Sustainable Acoustics and d & B Audiotechnik and in partnership with the Scottish Wildlife Trust.

The main theme of the piece was inspired by natural Scotland but from the perspective of Glasgow, with this context providing the lens to provide an anchor and sense of place.

The Scottish Soundscape Prize invited students to enter submissions that made a noisy and reverberant space more engaging, relaxing and restorative to support the well-being of the listener.

A shortlist of submissions was exhibited throughout the conference. The ISO 12913 Soundscape Standard was used by the judges whilst they considered the performance of each soundscape against the standard.

Peter Rogers, MD of Sustainable Acoustics said; “This was a ground-breaking and exciting soundscape competition which we have been delighted to sponsor. We hope this provides inspiration for how composed soundscapes can be useful in practice.”

The winner of the Scottish Soundscape Prize - Connecting to Nature - sponsored by Sustainable Acoustics, is Carmen Rosas-Perez from Herriot-Watt University.

On receiving her prize Carmen said, “I’m so pleased people enjoyed [the soundscape] and found all the elements that I wanted to transmit with it. These sounds are in fact very special to me. All the recordings were done in Scotland of course, on a field recording trip that was one of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had.”

The Runner Up, winning £250 from sponsor Sustainable Acoustics is Kieran Davies, from the University of Salford.

Rebekah Strong, Nature Based Solutions Policy Adviser at the Scottish Wildlife Trust said, “It was a wonderful opportunity to be involved in the Scottish Soundscape competition. The entries were all fantastic and it was fascinating to see the different associations and interpretations of nature and the emotions evoked by the soundscapes. It was a great way of demonstrating the ways in which nature helps us.”

Thanks go to the sponsors and to partners The Scottish Wildlife Trust, as well to the judging panel.

The Soundscape Experiences are available on our homepage.