Darren Copeland is a Canadian sound artist active since 1985. He is also the founding and current Artistic Director of New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA). Key interests of his work include fixed media composition, soundscape composition, field recording, multichannel spatialization for live performance, radio art and sound installations.

From 2019 to the present, Copeland has been releasing works under the moniker The Absent Listener. These works include installations, fixed media soundscape works and soundscape videos. All of the works in this project are derived from continuous soundscape recordings made at Warbler’s Roost, a 14-acre rural property 22 west of South River, where he is intentionally absent from the time of recording.

Prior to 2019, Copeland’s fixed media compositions have explored both abstract and referential sound materials. Many of these works are published on the empreintes DIGITALes label and have received mentions from Vancouver New Music, Phonurgia Nova, Luigi Russolo and other competitions. His radio art works engage in the associative qualities of environmental sounds in relation to spoken text and have been commissioned and presented by Deutschlandradio Kultur, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, WBEZ Chicago Public Radio, and Kunstradio (ORF). His sound installations included gallery and sited works which examine the relationship of sound and place. Activity in that area includes projects with Andreas Kahre as Copeland+Kahre, which includes a permanent installation in Edmonton, Canada.

Copeland’s work with multichannel spatialization took focus with residencies in Europe and Canada from 1999 to 2001 where he facilitated the exploration of automated octaphonic spatialization using the Richmond Sound Design Audiobox and ABControl diffusion software. In 2006 he developed a performance-oriented system using the Polhemus Patriot as a gestural controller along with customized software by Benjamin Thigpen. This system has formed the core of spatialization practice at New Adventures in Sound Art since that time. In 2011 he received a Canada Council for the Arts media arts production grant and an Ontario Arts Council Chalmers Family Research Fellowship to expand this performance system which lead to making spatialization an ensemble practice by adding two more spatialization performers who manually manipulate directional loudspeakers.

As Artistic Director of New Adventures in Sound Art (NAISA), Copeland has been curating since 2001 a wide array of sound art events for their annual events, such as The Deep Wireless Festival of Radio and Transmission Art, the Sound Travels Festival of Sound Art, the SOUNDplay and Springscapes series. NAISA’s programming is comprehensive and covers the entire spectrum of sound art from sound installations, to radio and concert presentations, soundscape compositions and to new emerging media.

Darren Copeland is an Associate Composer Member of The Canadian Music Centre. He has served on the board of directors for the Canadian Association for Sound Ecology (CASE), the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC), Vancouver Pro Musica, and Rumble Productions. He holds degrees from University of Birmingham and Simon Fraser University.