Bass clarinettist plays in ‘cathedral-like’ acoustic of cooling towers

24 November 2025, 16:19

Have you ever heard the resonant acoustic of a cooling tower?

Bass clarinet specialist and director of performance at the University of Sheffield, Dr Sarah Watts has teamed up with University of Nottingham composer and professor Dr Elizabeth Kelly, to create a musical tribute to a decommissioned Nottingham power station’s famous towers.

Dr Watts first visited Ratcliffe on Soar’s power station cooling towers in March this year and was struck by their unusual acoustic. She and Dr Kelly have collaborated on two pieces, ‘All I’ve Known’ and ‘Cooling Cathedral’, that document and celebrate the station’s history.

“I think people document places like this through photographs, interviews, film footage, but I took this as a chance to document the acoustics because they are very unique and once these have gone there is no way of getting that back,” said Dr Watt.

‘Cooling Cathedral’ is a piece that explores the resonance of the space using percussive sounds from the bass clarinet. “The extraordinary resonance of the space reminded me of a cathedral,” Dr Kelly said.

Read more: Saxophone and overtone flute improvise duet in giant cooling tower

1st Musical Performance in Ratcliffe-on-Soar Cooling Tower: ‘Cooling Cathedral’ by Elizabeth Kelly

University of Sheffield Professor of Electroacoustic Music Composition Adrian Moore recorded the performance in an attempt to capture the strange acoustic.

“As there are very few man-made spaces which are so enveloping yet open to the sky, it makes the event a unique experience, made possible by Sarah listening extremely carefully to the result of her sounds inside the unique space,” Professor Moore said.

“It was quite a humbling visual and aural experience which I hope comes over in the recordings.”

The videos for ‘It’s all I’ve known’, ‘Cooling Cathedral’ and a ‘making of’ video are available on the University of Nottingham’s YouTube channel.