Eloisa Matheu

CCCB

Eloisa Matheu

Alosa sons de la natura, Biologist, Alosa sons de la natura

Eloïsa Matheu has a degree in Biology from the University of Barcelona. In 1987 she began to record the sounds of birds and their repertoires, and would soon discover the potential of sound landscapes. In 1992 she founded the recording label Alosa sons de la natura [Alosa Sounds of Nature], and released the first guides for identifying animal sounds in Spain, specialising in birds, amphibians, mammals and orthopteras, while also featuring the soundscapes of different biomes.

She participates and collaborates with her recordings in various zoological research projects with writers from a variety of fields, especially dealing with endemic species in critical states of conservation, such as the Iberian lynx. More recently she has become interested in Landscape Ecology, working with parks and nature organisations in studying and monitoring sound landscapes, carrying out ongoing recordings and developing bioacoustics species detection and indexing techniques, with the goal of broadening knowledge of them.

She is particularly interested in spreading awareness of the sounds of nature as a tool in promoting its conservation. She does talks and sound lectures, and runs workshops and courses on identifying birds by their song, as well as on landscape perception and listening. She has worked on various exhibitions, documentaries, books on fauna, multimedia projects and press, radio and TV programmes; she regularly collaborates on radio shows on the environment, sharing recordings and offering her own particular way of listening to the landscape.

Since 2016 she has worked with the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona in the project to digitalise the collection of analogic sounds and make them more widely available

Credit: Francesc Llimona