Matthew Herbert is an award-winning composer, artist, producer and writer whose range of innovative works extends from more than 30 albums (including the much-celebrated Bodily Functions) to scores for Oscar-winning films (A Fantastic Woman) as well as music for the National Theatre, Broadway, TV series (Noughts and Crosses BBC), games (Lego) and radio. He has performed solo, as a DJ and with various musicians including his own 21 piece big band and 100 piece choir all round the world from the Sydney opera house, to the Hollywood Bowl and created installations, plays and opera.

He has remixed iconic artists such as Quincy Jones, Ennio Morricone, Serge Gainsbourg and Mahler and been a long time collaborator of Bjork's. He has had work commissioned by the Royal Opera House, the BBC and Deutsche Gramophon amongst many others but he is best known for working with sound, turning ordinary or so-called found sound in to electronic music. His most celebrated work ONE PIG followed the life of a pig from birth to plate and beyond. His debut book The Music published by Unbound in 2018 and he is the creative director of the New BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

Taking place at our facilities, in the surrounding forests, and out in the epic mountain landscape, Matthew's workshop will explore:
You don't need to be a composer to join this workshop - it's open to anyone interested in working with sound as a material. You'll work closely with Matthew over five packed days, developing new ideas around sound, recording, composition and making, listening actively to sonic environments both indoors and outdoors in the epic Pyrenean landscape, exploring field recording techniques to collect site-specific material and evolving new composition and production strategies. Finally, you will have opportunities to perform, broadcast, install and release the work developed via our in-house labels, radio station and network of performance venues.



WHERE AND WHEN?

The course takes place at our residential centre in Aulus les Bains. It's two hours south of Toulouse, high in the French Pyrenees, very near the border with Spain. For detailed travel information, see the transport section. The course starts on Wednesday, . We advise that you arrive the evening before (11/05/2021) - dinner and accommodation that night is included. The course runs for five days, ending on Sunday night. Accommodation on Sunday night is included, then we leave on Monday morning (17/05/2021). If you decide to take the minibus with us, you will be picked up in Toulouse at 6pm on 11/05/2021, and will be back in Toulouse at 11am on 17/05/2021.

HOW TO BOOK

To book your place on the course, click the button in the green section above. You won't pay anything right now - we'll send you a booking confirmation email with everything you need to know next. Your place is reserved without payment for three days.

You'll find a payment link in the booking confirmation email - follow the link to make a payment (either in full, or the first payment of a 6 month payment plan). In the latter case, a monthly payment plan will be put in place, so your card will be charged 1/6 of the fee today, and 1/6 each month (on the same day) for an additional 5 months. All card payments are handled by Stripe, and are extremely secure. We don't store any card data ourselves - all of this is handled securely off-site by Stripe. If you have a discount or grant code, you will be able to add it when you follow the payment link in your confirmation email.

Once you've made a payment, you'll receive another email containing your receipt, links to resources, contact information and access to our group chat to discuss the workshop with other participants.