News and Events

BU Professor Enjoys Award-winning New York Minute

16 July 2007

Sean Street and producer Andy Cartwright

An innovative feature made by our own Professor of Radio scooped a major prize in New York.

Professor Seán Street and Andy Cartwright of Soundscape Productions won a Bronze World Medal in the ‘Best Editing’ category at this year’s New York Festivals Radio Awards.

The half-hour feature, entitled “Then-Now,” was originally produced for BBC Radio 4, and aired in January of this year.

The programme uniquely captured the sounds and activities of 9 November, 2006.

"We're delighted to receive this award,” said Professor Street. “The competition in this event comes from all over the world, and apart from anything else, it was good to meet radio broadcasters from so many different countries, including Germany, China and of course the US. To win a World Medal in such company is very pleasing!"

An invitation was sent to sound recordists all over the UK to record whatever they were doing, wherever they were, between 6.00 to 6.01 pm on the appointed day.

The result was over a hundred recorded versions of the same minute sent in by students, freelancers and staff producers, in addition to members of the public.

Once Andy Cartwright put all the recordings into a structure, Professor Street then wrote a poetic narrative linking the material as one big radio poem.

"It's the first time I've made a programme in which I wasn’t in control of the originating content,” said Cartwright. “Quite scary, but really exciting."

The date and time of the recording was chosen randomly, a factor that was key to Professor Street’s interest in the project.

“We could have chosen a "special" day, but I like the idea of a day chosen at random, like those old photos we see of street scenes from the 1890s, or whenever, which give us such a poignant glimpse of the "ordinary" in another age,” Professor Street enthused.

“Of course there’s no such thing as an "ordinary" day – every day is someone's birthday, death-day, anniversary or whatever.

“And days become significant,” Professor Street continued. "Think of September 11th – now associated with a single catastrophic event – but what was it before that? As it happened, our date turned out to be the day Tony Blair lost the Commons vote on the new Terrorism law – just about an hour before our recordists pressed the button. Who knows what chain of events was set in motion in that minute?"

The New York Radio awards dinner and ceremony was held at the Tribeca Rooftop in Manhattan in recognition of the world's best work in radio programming and promotion.

Entries are judged by panels of radio experts from throughout the world for their production values, organisation, presentation of information, creativity and use of the medium.