Coming out of the Downtown Berkeley BART Station, it is no surprise to hear the sound of music, the pounding of Cuban conga drums. What is a surprise, however, is that there are no drummers in sight.

Instead, the beat is coming out of eight speakers hidden atop street lamps along the newly renovated plaza.

As commuters walk along granite pavers, the drummers give way to birds chirping in India, a college brass band tuning up, frogs croaking in Bali and vultures cawing in the sky above Istanbul. These sound snippets — 143 in all — were put there by Oakland composer and retired Mills College music Professor Chris Brown to form “Flow in Peace.”

The installation is site-specific, meaning it is one more layer of noise to add to the general cacophony of the heavily trafficked intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street. It is not a concert. The segments range from 20 seconds to two minutes and come on in random order broadcast through each of the eight Meyer speakers. Even Brown does not know what is coming next.

“Each of these sounds moves across the plaza like a wave, washing back and forth,” he said during a recent walk-through, the shifting music following him along.

The volume is turned down, making “Flow in Place” just loud enough to hold its own against the trucks and buses, the pile-drivers and the street musicians, on Shattuck Avenue.

“It is something that enhances the sonic environment rather than takes all of the attention,” he said, just as the pounding of a pile driver kicked up on a project across the street.

The sound sculpture is not an immediate grabber. The shock comes in seeing the main BART entrance when riding the escalator up from the train. The oppressive silo that looked like Darth Vader’s helmet is gone in a rebuild that took two years but can be seen in a 50-second video.

In place of the circular brick funnel is an airy glass canopy that brings light down the escalator and uplift to the one-block plaza, now paved in gray granite. The renovation took two years and cost $13 million, paid for through state and local grants.

The plaza opened in mid-October, just ahead of a futuristic eight-story city-owned parking garage to service the Downtown Berkeley Arts District. Garage construction paid for the public art on the plaza, through the Percent for Art Ordinance on construction projects.

Brown’s work, which cost $4,000, is one of two new pieces at the plaza. The other is “Home,” a 14-foot sculpture by Berkeley artist Mark Christian in the shape of a desk globe. The globe, which is lit from within but does not spin, is a visual counterpoint to Brown’s audio tour, which he has pretty much circled the globe to collect.

“I’m trying to make something that will surprise people by its presence then disappear, come in and out like clouds,” he said.

The plaza is now outfitted with red tables and chairs, where physical therapist Mark Poggetti was sitting during a recent work break.

“I’ve been hearing birds, nature, jungle music, drums and bass,” he said. “At first I was like, ‘Where is this coming from?’ Then I looked up and saw speakers and thought, ‘Cool!’ ”

Nearby sits James Wood, a former college station DJ in no hurry to leave his red chair. The sound collage lasts five hours end to end, and Wood is the type to sit through it.

“I’m a big fan of avant-garde and classical music, so I love this,” said Wood, who was reminded of the anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge when they amplified it for 24 hours. “During the day it was a drone, but at 3 in the morning when a truck hit that bridge it was grinding, beautiful stuff.”

Just then the sound of a car horn, recorded in traffic through Manila, came over the speaker, and a truck driver on Shattuck responded with a honk of his own.

Brown, 65, did all of his recording outdoors, walking around public places with a microphone attached to each ear in order to pick up sound exactly as a pair of human ears hears it.

“All of these sounds recorded all over the world are being brought into the plaza in a single piece of music,” he said.

Each of the 143 snippets has a title and a score that can be downloaded — or listened to outside the BART station from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. daily until Dec. 18.

Once the installation closes, it will be replaced by one of nine other sound pieces by nine artists, all ordered up by the City of Berkeley Civic Arts Commission.

“We want to make an immersive auditory environment,” said Kim Anno, chair of the Civic Arts Commission. “We want people to be in a space where they are having a new experience of art and sound.”