Where Music Meets Ecology: Sound & Environmental Research

Zack Di Lello is an experimental composer and sound artist. Before pursuing his MPhil and DPhil in Music Composition at Oxford, he spent four years teaching music at a secondary school in Boston, Massachusetts. In a recent presentation to the Ecosystems Lab, Zack addressed the question many of us had been wondering: how did a composer find his way into a research group focused on ecology, ecosystems, and biodiversity?

Through data sonification and field recording, Zack’s research uses experimental music and sound art to engage audiences with ecology and the climate crisis. His aim is to create sonic works that foster curiosity and cultivate deeper forms of more-than-human engagement.

In composing music that responds to ecological data and environmental change, Zack works at the intersection of art and science. His practice connects with ecoacoustics—the study of environmental sound—and with ongoing projects in the Ecosystems Lab, including research on soil systems and invertebrates. He approaches sound not only as artistic material but also as a way of engaging with research itself. Moving between quantitative and qualitative modes, Zack translates research into sound, opening space for alternative ways of sensing and interpreting ecosystems.

Zack performing live. His recent work, Ash Dieback and What Replaces Us, explores ecological change through experimental composition and sound.

Zack’s practice-based research is being supervised by ecosystem scientist Dr Cecilia Dahlsjö. He is collaborating closely with the Ecoacoustics Lab, led by Dr Ella Browning, which studies sound as a window into ecosystem dynamics. The lab uses passive acoustic monitoring and advanced analytical tools to interpret complex soundscapes, linking them to ecosystem processes and restoration efforts across habitats in the UK and internationally.

Within this research environment, Zack’s practice offers a complementary perspective. By transforming recordings and datasets into experimental music and sound art, he invites public engagement with biodiversity, environmental change, and more-than-human life through sound. His work highlights how artistic and scientific approaches together can expand our understanding of ecosystems and strengthen the lab’s interdisciplinary ethos.

A contact microphone attached to a lime tree, collecting acoustic data for ecologists and composers alike.