Radio

Celebrating 90 years of BBC radio – short features marking some memorable radio moments. Here is Chris’s selection:

1924: The Cello and The Nightingale
Duration: 01:34

Cellist Beatrice Harrison duets with nightingales in a Surrey garden – or does she? Sound recordist Chris Watson investigates.

BBC Radio 4, Wed 5 Sept, 11.02am

Writer and narrator Paul Evans, Wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, Producer Sarah Blunt

Hy-Brasil is a phantom island which features in many Irish myths. It appears on a map in 1325 off the south west coast of Ireland and said be cloaked in mist except for one day every seven years, when it becomes visible but still cannot be reached. There are rumours of strange creatures and a lone magician who inhabit it.

Written and narrated by Paul Evans, with sound recordings by Chris Watson, Hy-Brasil tells the story of a journey across a sea of imagination in search of this phantom isle.

CRICKET CABARET
Sat 14 July, 15.45 -16.00

An unusual cabaret of sound inspired by the songs of crickets. Created from field recordings of the insects, electronically treated sounds (by Chris Watson) as well as music and human voices, Cricket Cabaret is a celebration of the songs of crickets; a quirky, sound-rich composition inspired by ancient traditions.

Producer Sarah Blunt

Sunday 17 June, 11pm, http://resonancefm.com

The Estonian-based Framework FM project (Patrick McGinley) will broadcast this selection of field recordings made by students from the School of Art, Architecture and Design at Leeds Metropolitan University over the past three years working with Alan Dunn and the sound recordist Chris Watson. Each year a group of students work with Chris around Leeds, building their own contact microphones, experimenting with hydrophones or working with bat detectors to create unique new audio portraits of Leeds at various times of the day. In this selection we hear numerous original recordings and edited compositions ranging from the sound of inside a pinball machine, night-time acoustics under the rail bridge by the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and the microscopic sounds of maggots.

See http://cagd.leedsmet.ac.uk.


BBC Radio 4, Mon- Fri, 25-29 June 2012,13.45-14.00
A series of five illustrated talks inspired by ‘THE CAVE’

Wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson
Producer Sarah Blunt

• THE CAVE HORSE

A drawing scratched onto a wall comes to life as writer and naturalist Paul Evans reflects on the significance of The Cave Horse.
Actor : Adjoa Andoh, Wildlife sound recordist: Chris Watson

• LIMESTONE, WATER, FIRE and ICE

Illustrated with recordings made on location, wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson recalls his experiences in two dramatically different cave systems: the limestone caves of Waitomo in New Zealand, and the Kverkfjöll ice caves in Iceland.

• PLATO’S CAVE

Alan Read, Professor of Theatre at Kings College London takes a philosophical approach when he reflects on Plato’s Cave.
Additional sound recordings by Chris Watson

• CAVE OF FAITH

Martin Palmer, Secretary General of The Alliance of Religions and Conservation reflects on the role of caves in religious stories and traditions.
Reader; Adjoa Andoh, Additional sound recordings by Chris Watson

• BEYOND THE VERMILION BORDER

A dramatic finale to this series ventures inside the human cave; the mouth, in a virtual journey around the senses.

Written by Patricia Reynolds specialist in oral surgery and Director of Flexible Learning at Kings College London.

Joe is played by Harry Livingstone
The Oracle is played by Gerard McDermott
The Oracle Lady is played by Adjoa Andoh
The reader is Christine Hall

BBC Radio 4, 1st May 2012 11pm

The first of three nautically themed tales by Lynn Truss, written for and performed at the BBC More than Words Festival.

Periwinkle: Bill Wallis
Hermit Crab: Geoffrey Palmer
Contributor: Chris Watson
Sound recordings by Chris Watson
Producer Sarah Blunt
Radio Times Pick of the Week:

BBC Radio 4, Friday 20 April, 11.02a

Haunted by the sinking of RMS Titanic one hundred years ago, this fictional soundscape tells the story of an iceberg and its journey south after calving from a glacier in Greenland.

Narrated by Adjoa Andoh
Sound recordings by Chris Watson
Producer Sarah Blunt

NATURE: James and the Giant Redwoods (part 1)

BBC Radio 4, Tue 14 Feb 11.02, rpt Thur 16 Feb 21.02

James Aldred has long dreamt of seeing the world’s biggest trees, but their location is a well-kept secret, and then James is introduced to Michael Taylor, the man who found Hyperion, the world’s tallest tree, and so begins an adventure to the Giant Redwood forests of California in search of the some of the biggest living organisms on the planet, and an incredible climbing challenge.

Additional sound recordings by Chris Watson. Producer Sarah Blunt
NATURE: James and the Giant Redwoods (part 2)

BBC Radio 4, Tue 21 Feb 11.02m rot Thu 23 Feb 21.20

James Aldred encounters some of the world’s biggest trees in The Grove of Titans and a childhood dream comes true when he’s not only taken to see Hyperion, the world’s tallest tree, whose location is a well-kept secret, but also gets the chance to climb it.

Additional sound recordings by Chris Watson. Producer Sarah Blunt

NATURE: Painting in Sound

BBC Radio 4, Tue 7 Feb 11.02, rpt Thur 9 Feb 21.02

Wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson spends much of his time listening and recording the sounds of the natural world. When the National Gallery invited him to create a sound piece inspired by a painting of his choice, he chose Constable’s ‘The Cornfield’. This was the start of a creative and exciting project, which also involved students from Ravensbourne College of Art and Design and other professional musicians and sounds artists. The project began with audio guides for paintings selected by the artists, and then later developed into an evening event involving a live sound mix in the gallery to accompany a tour of the paintings with an art historian. NATURE uses these events to explore how painters use a range of techniques to excite the viewers senses; not only the visual sense, but the senses of smell, touch and perhaps most poignantly, hearing. The programme also explores how sound installations and sound guides may help some viewers, especially people who might feel intimidated by paintings, to engage with these works of art.

Producer Sarah Blunt.

BBC Radio 4, Tue 31 Jan 11.02, rpt Thur 2 Feb 21.02

Chris Watson leads a team of wildlife sound recordists to Corbett National Park in India, in the hope of capturing the sounds of the forest and the roar of a Bengal tiger.

Producer Sarah Blunt

NATURE: Emma Turner; a life in the reeds

BBC Radio 4, Tue 24 Jan 11.02, rpt Thur 26 Jan 21.02

Drawing on extracts from her book, ‘Broadland Birds’, NATURE tells the remarkable story of Emma Turner, a pioneering bird photographer who lived for many years on a houseboat in the reed beds at Hickling Broad. It was here that she took a remarkable photograph which provided evidence that Bitterns which had been driven to extinction in Britain in the late 1800s were breeding in Norfolk once again.

Wildlife sound recordist: Chris Watson, Producer Sarah Blunt

NATURE: The Ghost Roost

BBC Radio 4, Tue 17 Jan 11.02, rpt Thur 19 Jan 21.02

More than ten years ago, sound recordists Chris Watson and Thor McIntyre-Burnie recorded the sounds of tens of thousands of starlings when they came into roost for the night in the derelict remains of the concert hall on the West Pier in Brighton. Today the West Pier no longer exists, having been destroyed by storms and fire, what remains are the sounds of a Ghost Roost.

Producer Sarah Blunt

NATURE: The Water Boatman’s Song

BBC Radio 4, Tue 10 Jan 11.02, rpt Thur 12 Jan 21.02

Writer Paul Evans accompanies sound recordist Tom Lawrence on a journey in sound across Pollardstown Fen to hear the extraordinary sounds of an underwater orchestra of aquatic insects.

Additional sound recordings: Chris Watson, Producer Sarah Blunt

NATURE: Soundings from Antarctica

BBC Radio 4, Tue 3 Jan 11.02, rpt Thur 5 Jan 21.02

Soundings from a frozen landscape: A powerful and emotional journey in sound; above, below and within Antarctica’s landscape of ice with contributions from the team who made the BBC series Frozen Planet.

Sound recordist: Chris Watson, Producer Sarah Blunt.

You can read a review in The Guardian of this broadcast here.

The second part of Fiona Talkington’s interview with Chris is broadcast on Late Junction tonight on BBC Radio 3

Fiona Talkington has interviewed Chris Watson about his forthcoming CD and 12″ vinyl release, El Tren Fantasma [Touch # TO:42 and TO:42V], due for release 14th November 2011. Extracts from this interview were broadcast firstly on 29th September.

Late Junction is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 Tuesday to Thursdays at 11pm

Fiona Talkington has interviewed Chris Watson about his forthcoming CD and 12″ vinyl release, El Tren Fantasma [Touch # TO:42 and TO:42V], due for release 14th November 2011. Extracts from this interview will be broadcast on 29th September and again in October.

Late Junction is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 Tuesday to Thursdays at 11pm

BBC Radio 4, Mon – Fri, 26 – 30 Sept, 15- 45-16.00

Wildlife cameraman John Aitchison often finds himself in isolated and even dangerous locations across the globe filming wildlife. In this series he reflects on the uniqueness of human experience, the beauty of nature, the fragility of life and the connections which unite society and nature across the globe.

1.Taking the Plunge
On a remote island close to the Antarctic Circle, hungry leopard seals patrol the waters where young Adelie penguins are learning to swim.

2. Funky Chickens
In Kansas, land of the prairies and the ‘wild west’, John discovers some very funky chickens.

3. Patience
John travels to Svalbard to film polar bears hunting for food and reflects on what it means to be patient.

4. Fur Seals
On a very small island in the South Atlantic, amidst the noise and aggression of battling male fur seals, something very beautiful and tender happens.

5. Shearwater Hurricane
John travels to the Aleutian islands to film one of Nature’s greatest feeding spectacles.
Written and presented by wildlife cameraman John Aitchison
Additional sound recordings by Chris Watson and Miles Barton

Produced by Sarah Blunt

Afternoon Play: The Shining Guest

BBC Radio 4, Mon 12 Sept 14.15

Following an anonymous tip off, a body is discovered in the Welsh hills. At first its thought to be recent murder victim because of items found with the body, but analysis reveals it to be thousands of years old. A series of events are triggered which appear to reveal a parallel world. Like the Shining Guest ants which inhabit Wood ants’ nests and seem invisible to their highly aggressive hosts, the inhabitants of this secret world, the guests, have existed at the edges of our reality throughout time.

Recorded on location, this haunting and atmospheric drama is written and narrated by Paul Evans, with wildlife sound recordings by Chris Watson.

‘Off the Record”s radio program which Chris pre-recorded with ABC Radio National ‘s New Music Up Late program was aired on the 30th of July, it will remain online for the next few days.