Four centuries ago... did people listen in a different way than we do now?
How different were the sounds that they heard? And can we tune into their auditory world?
Tracking down ancient sounds that still exist, evoking some which have become extinct, this acoustic film imagines the noises of Elizabethan society through the ears of those who listened four centuries ago.
Winner of the 2009 Prix Marulic and the "best of festival"Grand Award at the 2009 International Radio Festival of New York.
What We Might Have Been
The tragic battlefield loss on July 1, 1916 that ended the dreams of a nation.
A historical documentary produced to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the battle of Beaumont Hamel, What We Might Have Been recreates the "war to end all wars", when the independent nation of Newfoundland raised a regiment to fight for Britain in World War One, when the Regiment was virtually wiped out on July 1, 1916 in France, and when the repercussions of that loss later catapulted Newfoundland into losing its independence and becoming a province of Canada.
WHAT WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN is winner of the Gold World Medal at the 2007 International Radio Festival of New York.
Not Fit For It
A five-part documentary series recreating the period between March 1932 - March 1934 in Newfoundland
The award-winning radio documentary series about how Newfoundland gave up elective democracy..
"The average person here is such that we ought never to have had self-government; we are not fit for it." (St. John's businessman Eric Bowring in testimony to the Amulree Royal Commission 1933)
In 2005 this series won the Atlantic Journalism Award
Survivor
The remarkable story of Lanier Phillips and the shipwreck that changed his life.
On February 18, 1942 the US Navy destroyer Truxton was shipwrecked off Newfoundland. 110 men died; of the 46 who survived one was black. The rescuers, never having seen a black man before, tried to scub his skin clean and white.
This is a story about growing up with fear in Klan-dominated Georgia, enlisting in a segregated navy, facing death in the icy North Atlantic, and a rescue which galvanised a man to fight racial discrimination.
The documentary is featured in National Public Radio's Driveway Moments CD release.
The Promised Land of the Saints
A 43-minute radio feature exploring the ancient 6th-century Chronicle of St. Brendan in a Newfoundland soundscape, using contemporary sounds and voices.
Part whimsy, part serious, it takes the Proustian view that memories are embodied in physical objects and sets out to find traces of St. Brendan’s paradise in present-day reality.
In 2005 this program won the internationsl Prix Marulic prize in Hvar, Croatia.
Running the Goat
RUNNING THE GOAT - A DANCE IN 8 FIGURES is based on a traditional Newfoundland set dance. It features the voices of Newfoundland singer Anita Best, folklorist Tonya Kierley, fisherman Cyril Whitten, the late dancer Mercedes Barry and others, plus the feet of many more.
First broadcast by Radio Netherlands, it won the 2006 international Prix Marulic in Hvar, Croatia. Jurors described it as
"an entertaining, multi-layered.. vivid, well-paced and perfectly mixed documentary that subliminally discusses the loss of tradition and its hope for survival"
The Wire
The 8-hour CBC Radio series that captured the Peabody, Prix Italia, 3rd Coast International Festival and New York Festivals awards. THE WIRE looks at how electricity changed music.
Featuring interviews with Robert Moog, Les Paul, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Steve Reich, Kid Koala, Akufen, DJ Spooky and many others. Coproduced by CBC's Paolo Pietropaolo and Jowi Taylor with Battery Radio's Chris Brookes, this CBC production has been heard in Canada, Australia and the U.S.
The Peabody jury called it “Ear-opening audio dynamite...this consistently surprising eight-part radio series explores how electricity changed -- and con tinues to change -- how we hear music, how we play it, even what we think it is or can be.”
to a sample episode
the series website
Songs My Mother Taught Me
A “documentary novel” about British women who married foreign soldiers during World War II , based upon real wartime diaries, letters, photos and recordings.
More than a reconstruction of history, it is also a personal journey of discovery, as events of the 1990's resonate with those of the 1940's.
This award-winning program has been broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Telefis Eireann, CBC Radio and Radio New Zealand. • Prix Europa Special Commendation for Radio Documentary
• Best Special Program, CBC National Radio Awards
• Gold Medal, International Radio Festival of New York
The Man Who Sang Goodbye
The story of the late singer Omar Blondahl.
Musicologists today give him credit for creating the modern canon of Newfoundland folksong. A star of regional radio and television with over a dozen record albums to his credit, Omar Blondahl was once a household name in Newfoundland.
Then at the peak of his career four decades ago he suddenly disappeared, never to sing again. Even his family had no idea where he went.
Beginning with genealogical records in Reykjavik and ending with an old man and a box of mementos in a Vancouver apartment, THE MAN WHO SANG GOODBYE sleuths out what happened.
Winner of the Canadian Association of Journalists award for Best Investigative Jornalism 2005.
The Letter S (Whispers in the Air)
The Birth of Radio:
When Guillermo Marconi received the world's first trans-Atlantic wireless signal in St. John's, Newfoundland, on December 12, 1901 radio as we know it was born.
The world before radio was a very different place. This documentary begins with a look at early long-distance communications systems, moves through Guglielmo Marconi’s wireless experiments in Italy and England, and ends with his historic transmission of the Morse Code letter “s” from Cornwall England to St. John’s, Newfoundland.
This feature won the 2002 International Prix Marulic Special Commendation for Documentary and has been heard in Ireland, Australia, Canada and the United States.
Those Awful, Awful Men
The hit comedy series as heard on CBC Radio's Definitely Not the Opera.
Ivan Morgan and Doug Bird star as The Awfuls, with Chris Brookes as Supporting Awful. The series is now off the air, but you can still sample these choice episodes.
This series was so proudly awful that it didn't win any fancy awards :)
Hark!
