MUSIC COMPOSER HANS ZIMMER AND PHYSICIST PROFESSOR BRIAN COX COLLABORATE TO CREATE MUSIC INSPIRED BY IWC’S NEW PORTUGIESER COLLECTION
Schaffhausen/Geneva, 10th April 2024: IWC Schaffhausen announces a unique project with Academy Award®winning film score composer Hans Zimmer and renowned physicist Professor Brian Cox. In what marks a rare collaboration between a scientist and a music composer, the unlikely duo has worked together to create a musical piece inspired by IWC’s new Portugieser collection and the Portugieser Eternal Calendar – the first secular-perpetual calendar engineered by IWC Schaffhausen. The music, which references the new Portugieser dial colours Silver Moon, Horizon Blue, Dune and Obsidian will be played every full hour at the IWC Schaffhausen booth at Watches and Wonders in Geneva.
At Watches and Wonders 2024 in Geneva, IWC Schaffhausen has just unveiled its new Portugieser collection, whose undisputed highlight is the Portugieser Eternal Calendar. With its first secular perpetual calendar, the Swiss luxury watch manufacturer builds on its extensive expertise in engineering mechanical calendars and pushes the boundaries in fine watchmaking. To accompany the launch of this highly complex watch, IWC joined forces with one of the foremost Scientific communicator Professor Brian Cox.
Brian Cox is a Professor at The University of Manchester who has worked on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva, The Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Chicago and the DESY Laboratory in Hamburg. He is best known to the public as the presenter of a number of award-winning science programmes for the BBC, boosting the popularity of subjects such as astronomy and physics. He has also completed a string of Guinness World Record breaking, sell-out live world tours.
“As we launch a watch with a mechanical program that reaches further into the future than ever, the collaboration with Brian Cox is a privilege for us. Brian can express complex scientific facts in simple terms and inspire, engage and entertain audiences. He is pivotal in helping us demonstrate what a remarkable achievement the Portugieser Eternal Calendar represents,”
“To a physicist with a deep interest in space and time, IWC’s watchmaking is a source of inspiration. Looking at the second hand of a watch invites profound questions about the nature of time and space and the underlying structure and beauty of our Universe. What exactly is it that this precision machine is so elegantly measuring? But science can’t answer the deepest of questions alone. It is beyond exciting for me to collaborate with IWC and one of my musical heroes, Hans Zimmer. Art and music are as essential to the progress of our civilisation as science and engineering. This project is an opportunity to bring these disciplines together to create something unique and wonderful“, said Brian Cox.
WHEN ART AND SCIENCE UNITE: HANS ZIMMER COLLABORATES WITH BRIAN COX
The Portugieser Eternal Calendar is not just a feat of engineering. With its intricate craftsmanship and high level of detail, it also represents a true work of art. For this reason, IWC reverted to another friend of the brand – Academy Award®-winning music composer Hans Zimmer. He has not only scored some of the most important milestones in the history of cinema but is also known for his “engineered” approach to composing music. Among other things, this is underscored by his role as a pioneer in the domains of using synthesizsers and sampling to create and capture unique sounds. IWC called on Hans Zimmer to compose music inspired by the signature dial colours in the new Portugieser collection. While working on the compositions, Hans Zimmer was brought together with Brian Cox to exchange concepts and ideas. The unlikely pair exchanged thoughts on the Portugieser Eternal Calendar and discussed some key concepts inherent to art and science. The unique perspectives shared by Brian Cox as a scientist inspired Hans Zimmer while creating his music. The result of this collaboration is a unique masterpiece of music. While representing Silver Moon, Horizon Blue, Dune and Obsidian, it also reflects the timeless nature of the Portugieser and this year’s theme, “A Tribute to Eternity.”
“As an artist, I always seek inspiration to take me to unexpected places and give my work new directions. Talking to Brian Cox, a leading physicist and such a brilliant mind, has deeply inspired me. This project has reinforced my intention to create a unique community of artists, scientists, and other thought leaders with the aim of collaborating on some of the most pressing challenges we face globally as a species,” said Hans Zimmer.
IWC Schaffhausen and Hans Zimmer already collaborated in April 2022 for the launch of IWC’s TOP GUN collection. They also joined forces to organise two spectacular concerts in Dubai in January 2023. With this new collaboration, they continue their journey together.
ABOUT BRIAN COX
Brian is Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Manchester, The Royal Society Professor for Public Engagement in Science and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Brian is widely recognised as the foremost communicator for all things scientific, having presented a number of highly acclaimed science programmes for the BBC watched by billions internationally including ‘Adventures in Space and Time’ (2021), ‘Universe’ (2021), ‘The Planets’ (2018), ‘Forces of Nature’ (2016), ‘Human Universe’ (2014), ‘Wonders of Life’ (2012), ‘Wonders of the Universe’ (2011) and ‘Wonders of the Solar System’ (2010). He also co-hosted popular astronomy and cosmology series ‘Stargazing Live’ with Dara O’Briain (and for ABC in Australia, with Julia Zemiro) and award-winning BBC Radio 4 series ‘Infinite Monkey Cage’, which has gone on to become one of the UK’s most popular podcasts. As an author, Brian has also sold over a million books worldwide including ‘Black Holes’, ‘Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos’, ‘Quantum Universe’ and ‘Why Does E=mc2?’ with co-author Professor Jeffrey Forshaw. Brian has undertaken several sell-out live world tours, setting several Guinness World Records, including for the biggest selling science tour – a record he himself broke with his most recent worldwide tour, ‘Horizons’, which took in venues in the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong and across Europe and was performed to hundreds of thousands of people across the world.
ABOUT HANS ZIMMER
Hans Zimmer has scored more than 200 projects across every medium and has been honoured with two Academy Awards®, three Golden Globes®, three Grammys®, an American Music Award, and a Tony® Award. Work highlights include the scores for Dune, No Time to Die, Gladiator, The Thin Red Line, As Good as It Gets, Rain Man, The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Thelma and Louise, The Last Samurai, 12 Years A Slave, Blade Runner 2049 (co-scored with Benjamin Wallfisch) and Dunkirk, as well as recent film scores including Wonder Woman 1984, Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run. In 2019, Zimmer also scored the live-action remake of The Lion King, for which he received a Grammy® nomination for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
IWC Schaffhausen is a leading Swiss luxury watch manufacturer based in Schaffhausen in the north-eastern part of Switzerland. With collections like the Portugieser and the Pilot’s Watches, the brand covers the whole spectrum from elegant to sports watches. Founded in 1868 by the American watchmaker and engineer Florentine Ariosto Jones, IWC is known for its unique engineering approach to watchmaking, combining the best of human craftsmanship and creativity with cutting-edge technology and processes.
Over its more than 150-year history, IWC has earned a reputation for creating professional instrument watches and functional complications, especially chronographs and calendars, which are ingenious, robust, and easy for customers to use. A pioneer in the use of titanium and ceramics, IWC today specialises in highly engineered watch cases manufactured from advanced materials, such as coloured ceramics, Ceratanium®, and titanium aluminide.
A leader in sustainable luxury watchmaking, IWC sources materials responsibly and takes action to minimise its impact on the environment. Along the pillars of transparency, circularity, and responsibility, the brand crafts timepieces built to last for generations and continuously improves every element of how it manufactures, distributes, and services its products in the most responsible way. IWC also partners with organisations that work globally to support children and young people.