Press Release 29/01/08

Robert Jarvis has been shortlisted for the New Music Award for his proposed new sound installation for the London Wetland Centre.

Echolocation will be a musical composition for a ‘choir’ of bat detectors, located in optimum positions around the reserve to receive the ultrasonic biosonar calls of the bats that visit each night (up to 10,000 at peak times).  These signals will be transmitted to a sound manipulating computer which will then record, process and sequence the sounds according to an algorithmic composition created by Robert.  The result, performed the following day, will be a four-dimensional experience based on the previous night’s activity, and therefore never the same from each day, where listeners will be able to listen to the composition through multiple speakers, as well as move through the sound field and experience the music fly around and through them.

A multi-functioning work, Echolocation is both a responsive piece that pushes at the boundaries of what is technically possible with work of this nature but one which will also have an impact on current research into bat behaviour.


Robert works as a sound artist creating compositions aiming to encourage people to rethink their environments and for them to question how they relate to their surroundings.  His works range from surround-sound gallery pieces to site-specific permanent outdoor installations, as well as smaller, more intimate works.  In recent years his work has received recognition through the British Composer Awards (winner of the New Media Category, 2005 and 2006) and also the British Council.

His work as an artist lies somewhere between that of a composer and a creative researcher.  As a keen collaborator he often works with ‘experts’ from many other disciplines, including outside of the arts; however, much of his work engages with those who do not see themselves as specialists.  In recent years he has been concentrating on compositions that make use of found-sounds from specific areas or scientific data collected from natural processes.  Although this work has taken on many forms: as gallery pieces, as interactive games and semi-permanent outside sound installations, his overarching aim is to create works that pose new questions in order to deepen understandings and entice new appreciations of aspects of the world around us.


The New Music Award is the most financially significant award for music in the UK.  It champions pioneering new music and provides a significant level of money towards one adventurous and challenging new musical work.

Allowing total creative freedom, the Award is open to absolutely anyone – individuals, groups, organisations, consortia - working in any genre and artistic context.  This is an unrestricted creative opportunity, and submissions are judged on artistic criteria.

The New Music Award recognises those who are pushing the boundaries of new music, who are taking artistic risks and producing exceptional work.  It seeks inspiring, challenging, pioneering and creatively-adventurous music.

Rather than being retrospective, the New Music Award challenges the UK's creative music community to extend the boundaries of its work.  The award is not a cash reward for the winner’s existing work but will, in effect, provide £50,000 towards the creation and performance of a piece of new British music.

With this award the PRS Foundation seeks to ignite the imagination of the creative community and also dramatically raise the profile and level of debate around contemporary British music (much in the same way that the Turner Prize does for contemporary British art).

The New Music Award not only provides an opportunity for a new work to leave a lasting impact on the country's cultural landscape, it will also provide a rare insight into the levels of musical creativity and ingenuity that exist across the entire nation.