My collection of work explores how sound, music, and listening mediate ecological relationships.

Konstantine Vlasis is an environmental composer, percussionist, audio researcher, NYU Torch Fellow, Leifur Eiríksson Foundation Fellow, Fulbright-NSF Arctic Research Fellow, Fulbright-National Geographic Award recipient and National Geographic Explorer. His projects, public talks, and performances center on the ways that sound and listening mediate experiences of changing landscapes, and how music can be a form of climate communication and environmental storytelling. 

As a 2024 Fulbright-National Geographic Award recipient, Vlasis will produce an immersive audio story called “When Glaciers Sing," which traces the human ecology of glaciers in Iceland through a timely story about the meaning of sound, the power of song, and the urgency of listening to glaciers today. This project draws upon his larger dissertation research surrounding “glacial auscultation”—a method of listening to glaciers to diagnosis planetary health.

As a composer, Vlasis has become an emerging voice within environmental, art-science, and soundart composition. His music blends complex rhythmic structures, minimalist textures, and sound design to create environmentally conceptual and immersive pieces. In this regard, Vlasis explicitly builds his works upon pre-existing musical textures created by nonhuman entities, natural soundscapes, and environmental phenomenon. His recent compositions, "2124" (2024) and "A Song for Lost Trees" (2024), expressly focus on ecological awareness, creative approaches to musical sustainability, and the efficacy of art-science collaboration.

Vlasis is a Ph.D. candidate in music and sound studies at New York University, a visiting lecturer at Listaháskóli Íslands, an Innovative Percussion Artist, and a performing member of the percussion quartet, APEX Percussion.

Thank you New York University, Fulbright, National Geographic, National Science Foundation, The Leifur Eiríksson Foundation, Humanities NY, Háskóli Íslands, Listaháskóli Íslands, Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum, Innovative Percussion, and Pearl/Adams Percussion for your support and affiliation.