About iForest

Growing the iForest

iForest is an immersive sound experience that typically covers an area of woodland, it uses a unique scoring system and cutting edge technology to fill it with some of the most beautiful singing voices in the world, the voices moving seamlessly around and throughout the space, creating a natural connection between the human and the natural world and inspiring a deeper sense of connection to that world. 

My interest in new ways of music making and in the natural world come together in the iForest.

It started out as a research project: ‘The iPod Forest’. Back in 2005 it was a room full of iPods each with a separate sound/musical part, but each part of the whole work.

Later on, around 2010, it became the Immersive Forest as I worked in ambisonic studios in London and New York and created experimental ways of writing music for voices and instruments that conventional western musicians could read.

Eventually, in 2016, I premiered ‘Song of the Human’ a work for 16 voices over 18 speakers, at Brookfield Place in Manhattan, commissioned by WNYC’s ‘New Sounds’.

The following year, 2017, a full scale outdoor iForest opened at the Wild Center, Tupper Lake, attracting visitors and press (the installation concept and design have been in continual use to this day).

Since then iForests have made appearances to large numbers of visitors in places such as Descanso Gardens, Los Angeles (2020) and New York Botanical Garden (2020/21). I continue to develop new works and new ways to experience those works in hopes that they lead to experiences that share my own passion for the natural world and for our part in it.

Pete M. Wyer. August 2021