Benj Katners - Intersection of Music, Audio and Audiology

Talking Ears

This is the sixth and final installment of the 2025 NHCA Updates in Music Audiology Workshop recap. In this episode, we'll listen to Benj Kanters' lecture "Tools For Teaching Awareness From the Intersection of Music, Audio and Audiology". Whether you call it the caboose, anchor, closer, wrap-up, coda, or ultimate, Benj's talk was the last of a long day of lectures and panel discussions circling the larger topic of Music Audiology, and we could not have imagined a better way to close out the workshop.

Note that the content has been edited slightly for the audio-only format, and these lecture recordings are not eligible for CEUs. If you want the full educational experience, we invite you to seek out the National Hearing Conservation Association and our annual conferences.

Benj Kanters (BS/MM Northwestern University) is associate professor emeritus of audio, Columbia College Chicago, where he was on the faculty of the Audio Arts and Acoustics department from 1993 to 2022. He directed the Audio Design and Production major, teaching audio physics and recording/production at all levels of the curriculum. After studying hearing physiology as part of his master’s degree at Northwestern, he developed the course Studies in Hearing in 2002, teaching physiology, disorders and conservation as a department core Requirement. Prior to Columbia, Benj spent twenty years in the Chicago music scene. He was partner and sound engineer at the concert-club Amazingrace, and later partner and chief managing engineer of Studiomedia Recording in Evanston. In 2007, he founded Heartomorrow and The Hearing Conservation Workshop, visiting universities and professional organizations to teach his unique flavor of hearing awareness to students and professionals in audio, music and the hearing sciences. To date, he has presented over 100 workshops in the US, Mexico and Europe and in recognition of his work received the Safe in Sound award in 2014.