Michael Umney – Audio and Documentary

Gold Award Winner, New York Festivals Radio Awards 2025

Arts Producer of the Year, Audio Production Awards 2018 & 2021

Winner, URTI Radio Grand Prix 2024

I am a freelance, independent audio producer, documentary maker and sound recordist. When possible I make radio. Sometimes I make podcasts too.

I have produced numerous audio documentaries for BBC Radio 4, Radio 3 and the World Service. These have taken me all around the UK, to rural Ireland, Europe, to the United States from New York to Wakulla County, Florida and to the occupied West Bank. Many of my documentaries have been critically acclaimed and some have won awards. I have also made work for film, theater and site specific community radio. I was previously a co-manager of London’s experimental community art-radio station Resonance FM. I’m a proud founder member of the Independent Community Radio Network.

I try to make work which is atmospheric, humane and occasionally funny. My work has often focused on art, writing and architecture but also on wealth distribution, the history of sound effects and management consultants. Recently I have made two programmes with Alvin Hall about Black communities in the American South.

I love rural places, working with communities; going to places I’ve never been and listening.

I am currently a Churchill Fellow, researching collaborative and creative documentation of rural lives in Lithuania and the Republic of Ireland and am creating collaborative audio portraits of three English rural communities for Radio 4.