Sound Designs by Gareth Fry - 2018
Sound Design open workshop for Complicité
I ran a two day workshop on sound design for Complicité, for a group of directors, writers, performers, musicians, dancers, curators and sound designers, from all over the world.
Expedia Sound Travels USA campaign
I worked with Create Future, Expedia and Brand USA to plan their Sound Travels campaign, highlighting aspects of a variety of American cities and locations to encourage people to visit. It eventually involved location recording in binaural sound across the USA by Clatter&Din
Tycho Brahe "Made in Space"
I worked with 59 Production’s Lysander Ashton to create the sound design for Copenhagen’s Tycho Brahe permanent exhibition. It features Kinect, touchscreen and motion tracking interactives, as well as regular video content and soundscapes in other parts of the gallery.
Eloise Hawser: By The Deep, By The Mark exhibition
I worked with Somerset House Studio’s artist Eloise Hawser, and sound artist Laura Mitchison, to create two soundscapes for Eloise’s exhibition, By The Deep, By The Mark, looking at liquid flow within the body, and the city.
Tunnel Visions: Array
I worked again with 59 Production’s Richard Slaney, on the recording, editing, mixing, system design and diffusion of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Karawane for Orchestra and Chorus. Starting off as a recording of the BBC Symphony Orchestra I created a sound design using 40 speakers and 20 sub-bass speakers spaced out down the Beech Street tunnel in central London (the dingy tunnel that leads to the Barbican).
Lock Her Up - Fuel @ Tate Modern
Working with artists Sabrina Mahfouz, Rachel Mars and Paula Varjack, and Fuel, I created three ten-minute sound pieces responding to the theme of incarcerated women. These were exhibited at the Tate Modern museum, then at the Latitude Festival, with future exhibitions in the planning.
Discovery Adventures wins at British Podcast Awards
The Discovery Adventures won the Gold award for Most Original Podcast; for Branded Content; and a Bronze award for Best Fiction.
Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards for Harry Potter and The Cursed Child
After a lovely Spring in NYC, we opened Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the refurbished Lyric Theatre on Broadway. With rave reviews and a sold out run, the show went on to win 7 Tony Awards. I was very fortunate to be awarded a Drama Desk Award, an Outer Critics Circle Award, and a Tony Award for the sound design.
Omay - BBC Radio 3 documentary
Working with producer David Waters, we created this documentary about anthropologist Laura Rival, who spent many years living in the Amazon in a Huaorani community. It intersperse’s David’s interviews with her, with her own recordings made there, and binaural recordings I made in the Amazon Rainforest.
The Encounter - Paris, Barbican, London, Antwerp, Berlin, Moscow
Directed by Simon McBurney and Kirsty Housley.
New York Times - Ben Brantley [Full review]
"Mr. McBurney and his ace sound designers, Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, have created an aural labyrinth of many layers. You’ll be watching Mr. McBurney’s lips moving in sync with what you’re hearing, only to discover that it’s just a recorded voice you’ve been listening to.
Did I say “just a recorded voice”? It’s a mistake to give undue value to what’s “real” over what’s a simulacrum of reality. With your earphones on, there’s no distinguishing between the live and the prerecorded, a blurring that allows Mr. McBurney to conduct very immediate-feeling conversations with his past selves."
Hollywood Reporter - David Rooney [Full review]
"the production's most astonishing artistry is the infinitely layered enveloping world conjured by sound designers Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin. Close your eyes and you might find yourself reaching for bug spray."
Variety - Matt Trueman [Full Review]
"Gareth Fry’s design piles up layers of sounds — recorded interviews, foley effects, a soundscape of McBurney’s home study. The effect is a soundcloud of a process, in which fact and fiction, past and present, research and production intermingle, spinning a story out of the air."
Talkin' Broadway - Matthew Murray [Full Review]
"the astonishing sound design by Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin ... play games with time, space, and thought you probably never thought possible. Echoes repeat and sustain themselves into infinity. Seemingly random noises layer into gorgeous but chilling tapestries outlining entire ecosystems. The British McBurney, simply by angling his head, can conjure an electronic American voice that rings utterly natural. Words transform into memory, which in turn become a wholly different reality, which is itself then subject to McBurney's tiniest whims. And if he wants you to become hot, cold, or despairing, or to escort you to the brink of death, he'll stand in exactly the right place and unleash his utterance in just the right way to ensure you're helpless in his hands. It really is all this precise. Perhaps the most arresting facet of this towering accomplishment is that it all feels as though it's been created just for you. Delivered as it is through a headset you're provided upon taking your seat, the soundscape is intensely intimate, which only makes the shivers cut deeper."
Time Out - David Cote [Full Review]
"Part mystic thriller, part tricksy aural illusion, The Encounter offers a meeting of ear, mind and soul you will never forget."
The Guardian - Alexis Soloski [Full Review]
"a triumph of binaural recording"
Exeunt - Nicole Serratore [Full Review]
" the show is heavily reliant on binaural sound to create a sonically immersive environment (the incredibly complex sound design by Gareth Fry and Peter Malkin is a great reason to resuscitate the now-defunct Sound Design Tony award). With the headphones, we have no distance from the events because the show is happening inside our heads. With the intimate power of sound, we give over entirely to what we hear, even if we know it is not real. We’ve been told that’s not an actual recording of a buzzing mosquito and when we hear it later as part of the artificial cacophony of jungle sounds we do not stop and question it."
The Village Voice - Miriam Felton-Dansky [Full Review]
"With sound designers Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, McBurney transforms our own relationship to reality, space, and perception through the constantly shifting sounds in our headphones. "
Epoch Times - Judd Hollander [Full Review]
"The other star of the performance is the sound design. McBurney himself acknowledges the considerable efforts of his sound design team, led by Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin—all of whom deserve the praise they have received."
Theatre is Easy - Ran Xia [Full Review]
" McBurney, with the help of sound designers Gareth Fry and Pete Malkin, has turned the performance into a synesthesia-inducing, orgasmic auditory experience, "
Interview with Vanity Fair
Interview with TDF Stages
The sound design for The Encounter was awarded The Evening Standard's Best Design Award 2016, and in 2017 received a Drama Desk Award, a Special Tony Award and a Helpmann Award.
Clod Ensemble workshops
I ran two workshops in 2018 for Clod Ensemble, for performers, directors, writers, musicians, composers and dancers.
Barbershop Chronicles - US tour
Barbershop Chronicles continued wowing audiences around the world, starting the year with a tour of Australia and New Zealand in the Spring, before embarking on a major US tour in the Winter.
Genesis Inc
Hampstead Theatre. Directed by Laurie Sansom. Music by Zara Nunn.
Harry Enfield
The One
Soho Theatre. Directed by Steve Marmion. A revival of our 2017 production, written by Vicky Jones (Fleabag, Killing Eve).
Birkbeck directors course
Sound design workshop
As You Like It
Regents Park Open Air Theatre. Directed by Max Webster. Music by Charlie Fink (Noah and the Whale)
Anna Meredith: Five Telegrams: Sender / Receiver: First Night of the Proms and EIF Opening
After working with 59 Production’s Richard Slaney earlier in the year, we worked with Anna Meredith on her piece Five Telegrams. The night before the First Night of the Prom, we previewed her piece, projection mapped on the exterior of the Royal Albert Hall.
Then using recordings of that performance, and Anna’s actual First Night of the Prom (which had visuals mapped on the inside of the Royal Albert Hall), we edited and mixed a version to play for the opening of the Edinburgh International Festival.
Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House
Moments of Silence - Imperial War Museum
I worked again with 59 Production’s Richard Slaney to create this exhibition for the IWM. In the first space I created a soundtrack entirely out of the sound of sand, to accompany a projected abstract piece animated using sand particles. The second space, which was completely dark and treated to be acoustically dead, featured am ambisonic soundscape of a number of two-minute silences, that myself, my team and others recorded of a variety of memorial silences held across the world, from St. Pauls to a submarine, from Derby Football Club to the Everest Base Camp.
In Search Of Greatness
I created additional sound design for this amazing documentary that looks at what it takes to make a great sports person, and how often they don’t fall within the confines of what statistics and metrics predict will lead to greatness. Directed by Gabe Polsky.
OISTAT workshop
I ran a workshop on sound design at the OISTAT conference in Cardiff
Still No Idea
UK tour and Royal Court Theatre. Directed by Lee Simpson.
We made No Idea in 2010, and developed Still No Idea from it in 2018.
CBeebies Thumbelina
Directed by Jon Spooner. Featuring a seven piece band, this musical was broadcast on CBeebies over Christmas and on BBC2 on Christmas Eve
