Visitors to AddenbrookeÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Treatment Centre (ATC) will be able to listen to a unique sound installation from Monday 4 to 8 December that gives a compelling insight into life behind hospital doors.
The installation is a wooden roundhouse where visitors can experience 360-degree audio with the voices of 100 people from different hospitals reflecting on their daily lives and work, their challenges, joys, inspirations and losses.
100 VOICES was created by Cambridge-based composer, Hannah Conway, and librettist, Hazel Gould, after five months of research, workshops and conversation with staff, patients and visitors in twelve hospitals. They are run by ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ (CUH) ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Foundation Trust, University College London Hospitals (UCLH) ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Foundation Trust, University Hospitals Bristol and Weston (UHBW) ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Foundation Trust, and Lancashire Teaching Hospitals ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Foundation Trust.
Organisers say the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ touches all our lives, but there are huge numbers of people who work behind the scenes and are seldom seen or heard. The sonic artwork features voices, songs, original music and contributions from a fictional midwife, porter, manager and patient. References to hospital life include critical and end of life care.
The 100 Voices visit to Cambridge is supported by the CUH Arts team, and AddenbrookeÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ Charitable Trust (ACT), and will open at 1pm on Monday (4 Dec).
CUH head of arts, Natalie Ellis, said
Every day, thousands of staff at our hospitals work tirelessly together to provide care for patients. There are so many incredible professions under one roof all bringing huge amounts of expertise and experience to their work, and united by a commitment to patients.
100 Voices provides an opportunity for many of those voices to be valued through music-making and conversation, illustrating the immense skill across this hospital, and enabling their stories to be acknowledged. We are so delighted to have participated, and cannot wait for our community to experience the sound installation for themselves.
Natalie Ellis
Hazel Gould and Hannah Conway said:
We seek to represent a true cross-section of the incredible encounters we had during our time in the hospitals. The voices span age, class, race and gender, displaying the enormous range of identities, backgrounds, perspectives, and experience that congregate under the umbrella of the ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½.
This piece aims to be an authentic snapshot of people, place, and time. We have created music from the sound of the voices but the words remain unchanged.
Hazel Gould and Hannah Conway
The installation visited Bristol and Preston during November. See for more.
The 100 Voices project was featured on BBC Radio 3's Music Matters programme in November, with interviews from Hannah Conway and Natalie Ellis. Listen again here: