South West composer helps to make world's most famous artwork accessible to all
It's part of a ground-breaking collaboration.
A groundbreaking collaboration is opening new opportunities for more than 2 million people living with sight loss in the UK1 to engage with and appreciate some of the most famous artworks in the world.
Teaming up with renowned composers and the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), some of history’s most iconic artworks have been reimagined in music, enabling, for the first time, people who are blind and visually impaired to experience artwork in a whole new way.
From Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to David Hockney’s The Big Splash – the new ‘Sound of a Masterpiece’ album has been created using state-of-the-art Dolby Atmos Sound and each individual track has been crafted to better connect with and understand famous artworks, no matter your background or disability.
Created by visually impaired composer, Bobby Goulder and the New Radio Phonic Workshop’s award-winning composers, the album also aims to help the wider population to better connect with and understand famous artwork, with new research revealing almost half (46%) of Brits don’t feel like they can truly appreciate art.
With more than half (51%) agreeing linking artwork to sensory experiences such as sound would make it more engaging, the project hopes to ensure that its profound impact can be felt beyond the realm of sight alone.
Max de Wardener was part of the project, he said: "We tried to put some of the actual sound elements into the pieces.
"So, for example, with Waterloo by Monet we worked on including a lot of outside, space and countryside noises.
"Quite often when I work with film and TV the needs get quite specific and I think with this I liked it because it was very open.
"No one knew what the specific sounds or needs were."