Staff Profile - School of Arts and Cultures

Introduction

David de la Haye is a musician, field recordist, sound artist and producer. His current work explores marine conservation efforts through the immersive nature of ambisonic sound installations. He is developing a portable sonic-geodesic dome structure as part of of recent Pioneer Award from Newcastle University's Institute for Creative Arts Practice.

David completed an MMus in Glitch Music and Aesthetics of Failure in Digital Composition at Newcastle University in 2004 and later became a professional musician and live sound engineer touring at major international venues including Tønder Festival (Denmark), Moscow International House of Music (Russia), Linz International Street Performance Festival (Austria), Rainforest World Music Festival (Borneo), Calgary Festival (Canada) and Chicago Highland Games (USA). When not working at the University as Senior Music Technician, he still performs with Monster Ceilidh Band (featuring Newcastle Folk Degree alumni) and Sony award-winning songwriter Jez Lowe and the Bad Pennies

Qualifications

MMus (Distinction), Newcastle University, 2003 - 2004

AfCGI Level 5 Award for Professional Recognition (Leadership and Management), 2018

BMus in Jazz and Contemporary Music (2:1), Leeds College of Music, 1999 - 2003

NVQ in Business Start-up: Northumbria Uni, 2005

Memberships

Performing Right Society

MIScT (Member of the Institute of Science and Technology)

Musician's Union

AVID Certified Instructor

Wildlife Sound Recording Society (WSRS)

UK and Ireland Soundscape Community (UKISC)

Previous positions

Lecturer in Electroacoustic Music, Northumbria University Media Degree

Community Sound/Recording Engineer, Washington Arts Centre

Director of Canopy New Music, Experimental Music promoters

Research

Landlines. Tracks, Traces and Trails: Nature Revealed

Leeds University/Natural England (AHRC funded)

Tracks, Traces and Trails: Nature Revealed (TTT) is a creative engagement initiative that seeks to connect communities to their local nature reserves, in order to gain a new understanding of environmental issues and the natural world. This partnership project between the University of Leeds and Natural England uses creative interventions resulting in a series of artistic outputs including a children’s storybook, soundscapes, artworks and new writing, aiming to make the invisible visible.

I will be tracking underwater soundscapes from water bodies around the NE of England, including pit-ponds, wetland sites, the three rivers of Tyne, Tees and Wear and the Farne Islands. These recordings will be augmented with bespoke songs by local singer-songwriter Jez Lowe to create a miniature radio ballad for aquatic lifeforms, told by the marine dwellers themselves about the coastal communities that rely on them.

Cetacean Conservation: An Oceanic Sound Model

Pioneer Award 2020 (Newcastle University Institute for Creative Arts Practice)

For 15 years, citizen-science volunteers at the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust have collected visual and acoustic data on cetacean movements and noise pollution, providing enough evidence to policy makers to help identify Marine Protected Areas.

NetTag (Newcastle University, SAgE) is a revolutionary marine underwater communication technology, currently used to locate missing fishing equipment to reduce marine waste and cetacean entrapment but with potential to be adopted by the Arts as a remote acoustic device.

This experimental research project intercepts the acoustic data collected by HWDT and NetTag, inviting listeners to imagine an oceanic perspective through the generation of a sound installation that crosses between Marine Science, Bioacoustics, Electronic Engineering and Digital Arts.

David de la Haye is the only technician to have been awarded the ‘Pioneer Award’ from Newcastle Institute for Creative Arts Practice.

Exploring the Islands and Marine Life of the Hebrides Through Sound

NUTELA Award

Following a grant from the Newcastle University Technology Enhanced Learning Advocates, I joined a citizen-science programme to learn more about underwater recording and field-recording in practice. A work in progress was performed as part of the LIVE in the Kings Hall lunchtime concert series in Pct 2019. An accompanying blog can be read here:

https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/ltdev/2020/01/02/guest-blog-exploring-the-islands-and-marine-life-of-the-hebrides-through-sound/

Conference of the Birds (Sound Technician)

Cherryburn National Trust. Installation by Marcus Coates

As the project’s sound technician, I visited the Cherryburn site to make field recordings and measure impulse responses before recording the seven ornithologists, including Geoff Sample and Helen Macdonald, at Culture Lab. Post-production involved distributing the voices across a seven-speaker sound installation and a binaural rendering for the Hatton Gallery.

https://research.ncl.ac.uk/mcahe/newsevents/anewcommissionforcherryburn.html

Bridges_____

A collaborative research project between David de la Haye and James Davoll. Sonification of Newcastle's iconic bridges exhibited as part of SAPL/AHRC funded event 'Scaling The Heights' and showcased at the 2016 Impact Event through video and audio documentation. Its installation in the Tyne Bridge north tower attracted over 400 visitors.

Teaching

MUS1092 : Folk Ensemble 1

MUS2092 : Folk Ensemble 2

MUS3093 : Folk Ensemble 3

MUS2050 : Composition and Arrangement in Folk and Modal Music

Technical demonstrator for recording element of above ensemble projects.

Publications

Davoll J, de la Haye D. Bridges____. 2016. Newcastle upon Tyne: North Tower Tyne Bridge.
Bowen S, de la Haye D, O'Leary M, Mander S. Making Marks. 2019. Great North Museum:Hancock: Great North Museum Planetarium, 1.
Preston J, Davoll J, de la Haye D. MurMur. 2017. Newcastle upon Tyne: Newcastle City Walls.
Mooney S, de-la-Haye DJC. Sensing the Park. . 2015.

David De La Haye

Music Technician