Artists are being invited to take part in a field recording workshop to collect sounds of nature and wildlife from the North Pennines.
The North Pennines AONB Partnership’s community arts project for 2023 started a programme of workshops in the Fellfoot Forward area of Cumbria to document the natural and social worlds through music and sound.
This field recording project is headed by sound artists Chris Watson and Tim Shaw, and will take place on High Moorland near Talkin.
This will include sound walking, recording techniques, and microphone placement to collect the diverse sounds from the different ecologies of this area.
It is hoped participants will gain hands-on experience in the craft of field recording, location sound, and new ways of listening to our shared soundscapes.
Chris Watson is a freelance composer and sound-recordist with a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals and habitats from around the world.
He specialises in creating spatial sound installations which feature a strong sense and spirit of place.
His television work includes many programmes in the David Attenborough ‘Life’ series, including ‘The Life of Birds’, which won a BAFTA Award for ‘Best Factual Sound’ in 1996, and as the location sound recordist for the BBC series ‘Frozen Planet’, which also won a BAFTA Award for ‘Best Factual Sound’ (2012).
Tim Shaw, originally from Cumbria, is an artist working with sound, light and communication media.
Presenting work through performances, installations and sound walks, Tim said he is interested in how effective environments can be constructed or explored using diverse techniques and technologies.
Working with field recordings, electronics, video, synthesis, sound objects, self-made hardware, and DIY software, his practice creatively appropriates communication technologies to explore how these devices change the way we experience the world.
Tim is a Lecturer in Digital Media at Newcastle University and the co-curator of the Walking Festival of Sound.
The workshop will include an afternoon/evening session on Thursday, May 4, starting at 2pm, and a dawn chorus workshop on Friday, May 5, ending at 9am.
For more information, visit northpennines.org.uk/event/fff-environmental-listening-workshop/.
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