Stewart Copeland of The Police Collaborates with Naturalist on Groundbreaking Album Featuring Animal Sounds

Stewart Copeland, the Grammy-winning drummer behind The Police, has joined forces with veteran nature recordist Martyn Stewart to produce an unprecedented musical project that incorporates the calls of laughing hyenas, Asian owls, and howler monkeys. The collaboration, set to be profiled on a prominent Sunday evening news magazine broadcast, represents a novel fusion of bioacoustics and orchestral composition.

Copeland, born in Virginia in 1952 and raised largely in Beirut and Cairo where his father served as a CIA officer, rose to global fame in the late 1970s and early 1980s as the drummer for The Police, the trio he founded with Sting and guitarist Andy Summers. The band sold more than 75 million records worldwide and produced five studio albums before splintering in 1986. Since then, Copeland has built a prolific second career as a composer, writing scores for films including "Rumble Fish," "Wall Street," and "Talk Radio," as well as operas and ballets performed by major symphony orchestras. His turn toward incorporating wildlife sounds marks another unconventional chapter in a career defined by genre-crossing experimentation.

Martyn Stewart, a British-born naturalist often regarded as one of the most prolific nature recordists alive, has captured audio on every continent, contributing to documentaries for the BBC, National Geographic, and Sir David Attenborough's celebrated wildlife productions. Stewart was diagnosed with terminal cancer several years ago and has since devoted his efforts to preserving and sharing his library through his nonprofit, The Listening Planet. His vast archive is considered irreplaceable, capturing sounds from ecosystems that have since been altered or destroyed by climate change, habitat loss, and human encroachment.

The broader implications of the Copeland-Stewart project extend beyond novelty. Conservation scientists have increasingly turned to bioacoustics as a tool for monitoring ecosystem health, and prominent artistic collaborations can draw public attention to species whose habitats face imminent threats. With global wildlife populations having declined by an average of 69 percent since 1970 according to the World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report, works that preserve and elevate animal sounds carry both aesthetic and archival weight. The upcoming broadcast segment is expected to explore how the two artists translated raw field recordings into structured musical arrangements, and what Stewart hopes his life's work will mean for future generations.