AHRC funded researcher Jane Grant, a sound artist based at the University of Plymouth has won the 2008 PRS New Music Award, the most financially significant award for music in the UK. This £50,000 prize has been called music's equivalent to the Turner Prize. It champions pioneering new music and provides a significant amount of money towards the creation of one adventurous and challenging new musical work.

The winning team - sound artist Jane Grant, musician and physicist John Matthias and composer Nick Ryan - have until September 2009 to create their visionary new work, designed to mimic the human brain at work and reproduce the sound of the UK as music.

Entitled 'The Fragmented Orchestra' this work should mirror the function of the human brain and the way it processes sound.

At the heart of this new work are 24 soundboxes placed across the UK in locations chosen for their 'inherent sonic rhythms'. These will include a football stadium, cathedral, dairy farm, school playground, motorway crash barrier and a field. Each solar powered soundbox contains an artificial neuron modelled on those which fire within the brain and will be attached to a resonant surface.

Read more at: University of Plymouth website.

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Media Contact: Jake Gilmore, Communications Manager, j.gilmore@ahrc.ac.uk. Tel: 0797 099 4586

Editors Notes

Arts & Humanities Research Council: Each year the AHRC provides approximately £100 million from the Government to support research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities, from archaeology and English literature to design and dance. In any one year, the AHRC makes approximately 700 research awards and around 1,000 postgraduate awards. Awards are made after a rigorous peer review process, to ensure that only applications of the highest quality are funded. Arts and humanities researchers constitute nearly a quarter of all research-active staff in the higher education sector. The quality and range of research supported by this investment of public funds not only provides social and cultural benefits but also contributes to the economic success of the UK.