Hunt for the Nightingale’s Song
BBC Radio 4
Thursday 5th August
21.02-21.30
When he was 14 years old, wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson read about a bird that sings at night. The bird was a Nightingale; and since first reading about it, Chris has been fortunate enough to hear Nightingales both in Britain and Europe but always as part of a chorus of birds.
Now, in this programme, he tries to get a microphone really close to a lone Nightingale to record its remarkable song; a rich, mellow series of notes.
Of course, it’s not as easy as it sounds, and one bird in particular decides to play a game of Hide and Seek and switch song perches. But over the course of several nights, and using different microphone techniques, Chris is able to get closer and closer to a singing male bird. The result, after several sleepless nights, some unexpected recordings and a battle with brambles and nettles is the most astonishing clear, beautiful recording of the song of a Nightingale.
Producer Sarah Blunt
Chris Watson on Jarvis Cocker's "Sunday Service" | Sunday 25th July 2010
BBC 6 Music - Live from Port Eliot Festival, Cornwall
"Sunday Service", presented by Jarvis Cocker from 1600 on Sunday 25th July 2010
You can listen here for 6 more days
Skibbereen Arts Festival | At The Ends of The Earth – Chris Watson in Conversation
Wednesday 28th July 2010 - 8:30pm - 10€ - Abbeystrewry Church
Skibbereen Arts Festival is delighted to see the return of sound recordist and artist Chris Watson to present a selection of audio recordings in the atmospheric Abbeystrewry Church.
As David Attenborough’s sound man, Chris Watson is frequently to be found in inhospitable parts of the globe, capturing the sound of monsoon downpours in tropical rainforests, or recording the sounds of activity inside termite mounds in the stifl ing deserts of Namibia. This year Watson has been in the North Pole and the Antarctic to record sounds for the television series ‘The Frozen Planet’.
For this special live event Chris will be in conversation with Presenter Luke Clancy and Producer Kevin Brew from RTÉ Radio 1’s Sound Stories programme, to discuss the sounds, silences and unique atmosphere that is to be found at both ends of the world.
“I was out in the midnight sun, standing on just two metres of frozen sea ice, 12 kilometres from land, with 750m of ocean beneath my feet, recording pods of killer whales surfacing to breathe in a narrow crack in the sea ice, just three metres away”. (Chris Watson)
Hazard - Wind now up on iTunes
In 2001 Chris Watson contributed wind recordings to an album by Hazard (BJNilsen)
Wind (Ash International # Ash 6.5) is now available on itunes
You can read more about this album here
Chris Watson in The Wire | August 2010
On the cover: Chris Watson - Ken Hollings meets the sound recordist and Cabaret Voltaire founder whose mic penetrates the wild places humans can't reach...
August BBC Radio Shows
Hunt for the Nightingale’s Song
BBC Radio 4
Thursday 5th August
21.02-21.30
When he was 14 years old, wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson read about a bird that sings at night. The bird was a Nightingale; and since first reading about it, Chris has been fortunate enough to hear Nightingales both in Britain and Europe but always as part of a chorus of birds.
Now, in this programme, he tries to get a microphone really close to a lone Nightingale to record its remarkable song; a rich, mellow series of notes.
Of course, it’s not as easy as it sounds, and one bird in particular decides to play a game of Hide and Seek and switch song perches. But over the course of several nights, and using different microphone techniques, Chris is able to get closer and closer to a singing male bird. The result, after several sleepless nights, some unexpected recordings and a battle with brambles and nettles is the most astonishing clear, beautiful recording of the song of a Nightingale.
Producer Sarah Blunt
A Guide to Coastal Birds
BBC Radio 4
Starts Sunday 8 August (for 5 weeks)
15.45 -16.00
With Summer here, many people will be heading towards the coast. Of course, it’s not only people you find around Britain’s coastline but also birds. Wherever you go, whether its sandy beaches or rocky shores, sea cliffs or off-shore islands, you can find birds feeding and breeding around Britain’s coastline.
In A Guide to Coastal Birds, Brett Westwood is joined by keen birdwatcher Stephen Moss on the north coast of Devon, and with the help of wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson they offer a practical and entertaining guide to identifying many of the birds which you’re likely to see and hear around the different habitats which make up Britain’s coastline.
A Guide to Coastal Birds, complements three previous series A Guide to Garden Birds (2007), and A Guide to Woodland Birds (2008), and A Guide to Water Birds (2009).
Producer Sarah Blunt
10 August 2010 | Chris Watson in conversation with Sir David Attenborough
On the 10th August 2010, as part of Chris Watson's Whispering in the Leaves project, Watson and Sir David Attenborough will be appearing together, in conversation, at The Royal Institution, London at an event entitled “Calls of the Wild”.
Chris Watson’s wildlife sound recordings are perhaps best known through his work with Sir David Attenborough on BBC television series including The Life of Birds, The Life of Mammals, Life in the Undergrowth and Life in Cold Blood.
In this discussion, illustrated with tropical rainforest recordings used in Watson’s Whispering in the Leaves installation at Kew Gardens, Chris Watson and Sir David Attenborough talk about the animals heard in the piece, their experiences of filming and recording them, and the changing environment of the rainforest through the day.
For further information and ticket sales click here
www.davidattenborough.co.uk
Chris Watson on the Radio this week
Wednesday 3rd June 2010
I can hear the grass grow
Resonance 104.4 FM
www.resonancefm.com
The echo of a rainforest going to sleep transmitted through ninety speakers in the palm House, Kew Gardens, last Saturday, 29th May. Featuring recordings of a tropical thunderstorm and ending with the deep, lush sounds of the nocturnal insect chorus. Brought to us by Chris Watson - sonic gardener extraordinaire.
Have a look at www.whisperingintheleaves.org for further info and events.
Sonic horticulture on Resonance FM presented by Mark Aitken.
Wednesday 2nd June 5pm
Saturday 5th Dec 3.30pm (repeat)
Thursday 4th June 2010
Night Waves: Landmarks
Matthew Sweet and his guests explore Jacques Cousteau's The Silent World.
Produced by Lisa Davies
Whispering in the Leaves | Kew Gardens, 29.05.10 - 05.09.10
Chris Watson's Whispering in the Leaves is an extraordinary sound installation, using recordings and natural history broadcast to transport us to the far-flung, dense rainforests of South and Central America. Throughout the summer festival, Kew Garden's Palm House will be diffused with the dawn and dusk choruses of the myriad of creatures native to these lush tropical landscapes. A highly sensory experience, Whispering in the Leaves is a remarkable demonstration of the power of sound to evoke inaccessible and captivating locations.
Whispering in the Leaves is a powerful sound work derived from Watson's extensive archive of wildlife and on location recordings in Central and South America - habitats that host over half of the planet's wildlife. Diffused through the tropical foliage of Kew Gardens' iconic building the Palm House, the surround soundtrack of wildlife dawn and dusk choruses will be transmitted at hourly intervals throughout the day for 15-20 minute durations - the approximate time taken in the rainforest for the transitions from darkness into light, and from daylight to dark. The sound pieces feature the calls and voices of thousands of species, including the howls and shrieks of black howler and spider monkeys, the musicality of diverse birdsong and the shimmering and hissing of tree frogs and cicadas.
A highly sensory and captivating experience, Whispering in the Leaves is a remarkable demonstration of the power of sound recordings and natural history broadcast to transport us to far flung, inaccessible and often extraordinary locations.
Chris Watson will perform a live sound mix in which audio recording of a three or four-hour period across late afternoon, sunset and into the night will be compressed into around twenty minutes. Featuring recordings of a tropical thunderstorm and ending with the deep, lush sounds of the nocturnal insect chorus, the performance will create an intense auditory narrative for the audience.
Whispering in the Leaves is co-produced by Sound and Music & Forma. Originally commissioned by AV Festival 08.
www.whisperingintheleaves.org
www.soundandmusic.org
www.forma.org.uk
www.kew.org
and you can read reviews in
Gramophone
The Daily Telegraph
Culture24
and The Guardian audio piece by Pascal Wyse here
and a review in Frieze by Daniela Cascella here
Chris Watson, Constable & The National Gallery | 14th May 2010
[pic: Fabio Lugaro]
Friday 14th May 2010 7-7:30pm
Room 34
Admission free
"Musician and leading wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson will discuss the sounds of wildlife and weather in The Cornfield and the changes in sound pollution since Constable’s time. He will end with a performance of the piece he has written in response to this painting for the new Sounds of the Gallery Tour."
Chris writes: "Gazing through the woodland and out into the cornfield creates for me a wonderful and seductive sense of perspective. The mature trees frame a pastoral scene which is in turn bridged by clouds.
I can hear birdsong billowing from the leaf cover and a great spotted woodpecker drumming on the trunk of a skeletal tree which temporarily distracts the Border collie from it's herding duties. Unseen and almost unheard a freshwater spring bubbles into the drinking pool, a resource that is shared by animals and people alike on days such as this. From behind, a gushing breeze ripples through the tree canopy and out across open fields where ripe corn heads swish and sigh on dry stems, their slow rhythm accompanying a skylark singing from high above, a pin point of silver sound lost to all sight, in a pewter sky.
In the early 19th Century Constable could not only see into the distance but also hear it. From his memory no doubt the warm song of a yellowhammer and drifting tones and the church clock would carry far in the humid air. Noise pollution was yet to reach rural Suffolk revealing a quality of sound that has, like the landscape, passed into history."
