On Tuesday 10 October at 7pm CEST Chris Watson, one of the world’s leading recorders of wildlife and natural phenomena, will be at Fabrica for a lecture which will take the audience in a journey through sounds, from the Adriatic shores to the South Pole.
Watson was a founding member of the influential Sheffield-based experimental music group Cabaret Voltaire during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Since then, he has developed a particular and passionate interest in recording the wildlife sounds of animals and habitats from around the world. As a freelance composer and sound recordist, Watson specialises 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).
Watson has recorded and featured in many BBC Radio 4 and World Service productions including ‘The Wire’ which won him the Broadcasting Press Guild’s Broadcaster of The Year Award (2012). His music is regularly featured on the BBC Radio 3 programme ‘Late Junction’. He has also worked extensively for RTE Radio 1 on series such as ‘Sound Stories’.
In 2013 Watson received a Paul Hamlyn Composers Award.
His installations have been commissioned by international galleries and festivals such as Sheffield Millennium Gallery, Opera North in Leeds, The National Gallery, London, The Louvre, Paris, the Aichi Triennial in Japan and Unsound in Kraków.
Watson’s lecture is part of the residency program “Co-Ecologies” curated by Carlos Casas. Watson will also lead Fabrica’s young residents in a workshop dedicated to recording the roar of deer taking place in the Cansiglio Forest, not far from Treviso.
