My conversation with composer, sound healer and performance artist Wendalyn Bartley. I first met Wende when we were both doing a master degree in composition in the 1980’s at McGill University, and I was happy to reconnect with her work that explores the human voice and it’s relation to rituals, the sacred, spirituality, ancestors and so. We went for a walk in High Park in Tkaronto on March 11, 2025. Our conversation focused on her Buried River Soundworlds project – a way to rediscover the natural waterways of Tkaronto - and I was pleased that Wende accepted my request to perform a song in relation to Grenadier Pond in High Park to conclude this episode, which I found enchanting.
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Imagine uncovering hidden rivers beneath a bustling city, then giving voice to the forgotten spirits of the land. Explore the transformative power of sound and ancestral connection with Wendalyn Bartley in Tkaronto’s High Park.
Chapter Summary
00:00 Reconnecting with Nature
01:04 Meet Wendalyn Bartley
02:01 The Evolution of Voice Work
03:35 Questioning Ownership of Nature
04:49 Buried Waterways and Ancestral Connections
06:20 The Role of Art in Nature Connection
09:14 Grounding and Ancestral Dialogues
12:18 Sounding by the Water
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Behind the Story
Wendalyn Bartley’s journey started with a curiosity about the buried waterways of Tkaronto and evolved into a profound exploration of ancestral connection through vocal improvisation. This episode highlights her Buried River SoundWorlds project and offers listeners actionable techniques for deepening their own relationship with nature. The conversation took place in High Park next to Grenadier Pond.
Note: This is an automated transcription that is provided for those who prefer to read this conversation and for documentation. It has been verified but is not 100% accurate (some names might not be quite right). Please contact me if you would like to quote from this transcript: claude@conscient.ca
[00:00:01 - 00:00:54] Wendalyn Bartley
How do we restore our connection with nature? Because I think that part of the crisis that we're in, especially with the climate, stems from the fact that we've been disconnected from our relationship to nature. And so how do we restore that? How do we get back in touch with non-human beings? You know, with these trees in front of us here we're standing in High Park, and with the trees and with the waters and the lakes, whatever natural environment we're in, how do we. And how can we. And is it even possible? I guess the question could be to establish some sort of relationship which is obviously going to be different than a human relationship. And how can that connection ultimately impact the way that we choose to organize our societies and choose to live?
[00:00:54 - 00:01:41] Claude Schryer
Episode 222. My conversation with composer, sound healer and performance artist Wendalyn Bartley. I first met Wende when we were both doing a master's degree in composition in the 1980s at McGill University. And I was happy to reconnect with her work that explores the human voice and its relation to rituals, the sacred spirituality, ancestors and so on. Our conversations focused on her Buried River SoundWorlds project, a way to rediscover the natural waterways of Tkaronto, restoring our connection with nature.
[00:01:43 - 00:03:17] Wendalyn Bartley
Yeah, well, my voice work really sort of started after my studies, even though I was interested in the voice, but more, you know, even at graduate school, when we knew each other back then, that work really evolved. And when I started connecting with Richard Armstrong and Fides Krucker, who you introduced me to, actually. And through that connection and through that work that I did, I really found my own connection to my body, to the voice. And my voice kind of exploded one day into something I had never heard before. So I was like, okay, I gotta follow this path. I gotta follow this lead. Fairly early on, I was actually asked to write a string quartet piece for the Atlantic String Quartet, which was in St. John's, Newfoundland at the time. And I was sent a text written by Chief George Seattle, which asked the question, like, about questioning this idea of ownership. How can we own the pine trees? Like, we're standing right here in front of pine trees. How can anybody speak to the fact that people can even own the natural world? And so it really sort of sent me on a path of wanting to find ways for myself of deepening my own relationship with the natural world.
[00:03:18 - 00:03:47] Claude Schryer
Skipping future forward to today, Just recently, I heard you talk at the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology about your recent work, which I find relevant to this issue of collapse and renewal, because you're Talking, I think, about disappeared natural spaces, waterways and that kind of things, and then honoring them and connecting with ancestors. I really enjoy that work and I'm interested to know more.
[00:03:47 - 00:06:25] Wendalyn Bartley
Okay. Yeah. Well, actually, it started. Well, one aspect of the work I came to because I used to live close to High park, so I used to come here and was really curious about where the waters that are. That we'll see. We're going to walk down now to the Grenadier Pond, which is the biggest body of water within High Park. We'll go down here and there's a stream that flows. But where does that water come from? And so it turns out that the streams that are north of here, where all the houses are, were put, were buried underground in a big project which happened in most cities, where the waters that were above the ground had to be put underground, partly for sanitary reasons, because the sewers were just, you know, there were no sewer systems. So everything was just being dumped into the waters and it became, you know, a site of disease, actually. And. But there was also this issue of convenience. Okay, this water is just in our way. We got to build roads, we've got to build subways. You know, we got to do all this stuff. So we have to put them underwater. So I was interested in where are the places where this water comes above ground. And I kind of saw that as a bit of a liminal space, a space that was kind of in this in between world, where this water that used to flow freely down to the lake now had to be trapped. And then finally it was released. So that, that kind of. That moment where it sees the light of day was kind of, you know, this moment of. I wanted to kind of witness that and record that. And when I would do this work, when I go to these places which are just upstream a bit from here, you know, I also felt like I needed to connect to the ancestral spirits of this particular land or of any land. Wherever I do this, I really try to connect with the ancestral who once lived here. And here. There's many different stories, but there's a couple different mounds that are considered to be Mohawk burial grounds. But right now, as I was saying earlier, there's a big effort to indigenize this park and eventually limit car traffic. Well, car traffic is already being limited now, but even more so. But yeah, and what you talked about.
[00:06:26 - 00:06:45] Claude Schryer
At the Canadian Association presentation was some of the artwork. Because this podcast is interesting and interested in the role of art, and you're a singer and vocalist. And so how does that work? And could you sing for us now? Probably not, because you actually sing in an environment, right?
[00:06:45 - 00:06:46] Wendalyn Bartley
Well, this is an environment.
[00:06:46 - 00:06:47] Claude Schryer
Okay, well, go for it.
[00:06:48 - 00:06:52] Wendalyn Bartley
Well, why don't we. Could we wait until we get down to the water? I'll sing to the water.
[00:06:52 - 00:06:52] Claude Schryer
Right, right.
[00:06:52 - 00:06:53] Wendalyn Bartley
Okay. That's okay.
[00:06:53 - 00:06:53] Claude Schryer
That'd be great.
[00:06:54 - 00:06:58] Wendalyn Bartley
Yeah. So sorry again. What's your question?
[00:06:58 - 00:07:07] Claude Schryer
Oh, just talk about the artwork, like, the kind of music that you make and how it works, and maybe an intro to what we're going to hear in a minute.
[00:07:07 - 00:09:00] Wendalyn Bartley
Yeah, well, you know, I've sort of evolved practice of improvisation, vocal improvisation, inspired in part by my work with people that I've worked with from the Roy Hart school, which is a voice school in the south of France. And I've been there and I've worked online with some of the members of the Roy Hart community. Anyway, that's really improved my improvisation. But I've been sort of doing it for many years now. And I also studied sound healing, using the voice. So somehow, altogether, I've evolved this practice of vocalizing in an improvisational way. And many times I, you know, I make recordings, but I also edit them to create something that, you know, flows well as a composition. But I also discovered that the more I do it, the more the things that come out of me are kind of work as a. You know, it's just all the years of composing music, you know, you have. You embody that innate sense of structure and flow and development and so on. So somehow it just ends up coming out as kind of a set composition. And I can feel it when it's happening. It's kind of like you get into a groove and you know that you're on a trajectory and you just kind of go with it. And those are the spots in the recording that, you know, if I'm going to develop it further as a piece of music, those are the sections that I really listen for. And let's use this part, that part, whatever, and then create pathways or transitions between the parts that I am gravitated that I gravitate towards.
[00:09:00 - 00:09:42] Claude Schryer
And I'll put in the episode notes, links to your work. People can listen to it. But we'll just stop for a second here. We're both experienced sound walkers, and we're not doing a very good job because we're babbling. But that's the point, is for people to hear your ideas and what your work is like. But I love just stopping and listening to. It's a fairly quiet place. The communication or the connection with ancestors interests me. And so how do you do that? Is it a meditative approach or.
[00:09:42 - 00:12:14] Wendalyn Bartley
Yeah, I guess I would say that it's a way of, you know, first of all, I ground myself, you know, feeling my body connected to my breath and to the earth below me, and. And, you know, which can take some minutes to do. And breathing helps and gentle sounding, like just maybe humming or just low tones or something, and then just like, ask, you know, it's very simple. And I've developed this over several years now, but. And I have had connections with my blood ancestors. You know, I've done some research and so on, so I know a little bit more about their stories. But I did a course once with Thomas Hubbel, and he talked about going to the gate, this idea of going to the ancestral gate and just seeing who shows up, you know, and so I would do that. And I was surprised at, you know, people, relatives that I knew that had been. That had passed already. And I was like, you, what are you doing here? You know, some great uncle of mine who I barely ever spoke to, you know, in life, you know, he shows up, and we end up having kind of like an internal dialogue with him. So that's one. That's one thing. The other is, of course, that I did even before I did much studying around am ancestors or much delving into my own. I had this sense that I wanted to visit places in Europe, in the Mediterranean, specific Mediterranean area, where there were cultures that once honored women, once honored the cycles of life, once honored the relationship with nature. And so I went to those places, and this was 20 years ago, and I made vocal recordings. It was a total experiment. I didn't even know what I was doing. I just had this idea. I wanted to go and do this and see if I could tap into ancestral memory using my voice. And so, you know, it took a while to experiment. I didn't know. Like I said, I wasn't sure what I was up to. But eventually it started clicking, and I did feel some sort of energy coming into me, into my voice, in a similar way that I'd experienced with Richard Armstrong when I did that vocal workshop with him, when everything kind of, you know, unfolded and opened up for me. So it was a. It's kind of a sensation, bodily sensation.
[00:12:17 - 00:12:18] Claude Schryer
Feel like doing here.
[00:12:18 - 00:14:59] Wendalyn Bartley
Okay, so we're standing here by the shore edges of Grenadier Pond, which is fed by Wendigo Creek, which is the creek name given to the waters that are the sources of this that come from further north. And have been put underground. They come to light at a certain spot in the park. So, yeah, I'm going to do a sounding and we'll just invoke the presence of the waters through my voice and offer whatever emerges. I'm not sure what. We'll see. We'll see what happens. Finding ways to cultivate your own relationship with nature. And of course, I would suggest trying with the voice because I find it a very powerful tool. It sort of alters your own consciousness when you're doing it. Like, I always go into a different space afterwards. And if you're not a singer, you can just do humming, just simple humming. And another exercise that I like to do is just go up to a tree and find a little spot in the bark that has grooves in it and then just make tiny sounds like. And humming would work there too. Or whatever long sustained vowel sounds, like just an o or an ah sound. And just sing into the bark and see what happens. Because I find that when I do that, some sort of relationship evolves. It's hard to put into words, but I feel like I've met the tree and the tree has met me.