Our outside stage sits between the rising moon and setting sun, between the crows ash and the wattle, between the house and the view, between the domestic and the wild. This is where Linsey Pollak gave his recent concert, The Extinction Room, playing surprisingly uplifting music that drew upon the sounds of rare and endangered animals, as the sun set across our valley amidst the white noise of crickets and frogs. We celebrated with soups and cakes and donations went towards rare and endangered species. This is the life we hoped for – and here it lies; ceremonial time arises quietly in this magic valley. It lies in the everyday as much as it rises in the special. It is a humbling local place rather than a grand event.

The Extinction Room - Soundscape performance by Linsey Pollak

A marvellous event with Linsey Pollak - international musician, community music facilitator, and soundscape artist. Linsey performed “The Extinction Room” – music created from the sound samples of extinct and endangered species. This was a solo performance using the live looping of animal calls. At sunset on 30^th November 2008, two performances were given to audiences of 18 people, who wore headphones and blindfolds on an outdoor deck on the steep slopes of the beauteous Sunshine Coast hinterland.

The Extinction Room is a Library of Loss, a sound archive of extinct and endangered species ... the calls of species that no longer exist ... or may soon not exist. These sounds cry out from the past in perhaps a more immediate and emotive way than words can describe. They are a cry from the species that share and have shared this planet with us.

Linsey Pollak, 2008

This performance hosted by the Cooroora Institute

This is the challenge for artists in sound and creativity: to improvise around place and our more-than-human nature. To produce within the thick time of soundscape, to speak of darkness and of light, to play with nature, to let nature’s animal spirit lead in this short dance we create upon this earth. Here is our chance to tell the history and the future of this land, to be more artful in our imaginations. ... We take the temper and the tempo of this earth, building it to a more ceremonial time. Sounds sink into place, enhancing our understanding of our human-animal-land spirit ... These wilder echoes create our peaceful space.

Tamsin Kerr, 2008