What we do
Fellfoot Sounds, Saturday 19 – Sunday 20 August 2023
A day, night and dawn event for families and adults took place amongst the trees and stones at Into The Woods, Glassonby, Cumbria. This relaxed event, in a stunning rural setting, was all about sound, music, nature, and listening closely to the landscape around us.
There were maker activities, including building your own xylophone with rocks and making samples using field recorders, and live performances dotted about the site, including amongst the trees, in a tiny church, and at the nearby Neolithic stone circle. Guided walks varied from listening to real time sounds of nature through wifi headphones, to exploring wildlife, to discovering about ancient civilisations.
All activity was led by a team of artists, musicians, ecologists, and historians, and delivered by the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership. A priority of the event was to help people make an emotional connection with nature – to understand more about the natural heritage of the area, and to feel inspired about taking action for conservation. Read the blog of the event here.
Fellfoot Sounds artists and programme
The live performances and workshops were led by the following artists, musicians, ecologists and historians:
A radical folk artist and singer of 19th century broadside ballads and Lancashire dialect. As a researcher and educator, she applies the heritage of ballads to modern life. The working classes made music as a provocation, a tradition Jennifer continues performing broadsides, think rousing songs and passionate oratory, so audiences can reconnect with their heritage. She is currently a consultant on the University of Leeds and Science Museum project ‘Congruence Engine’.
ORE is the drone, doom brass sound of tuba player, Sam Underwood, and baritone horn/trombone player, Beck Baker. The pair create weighty drone-scapes that evolve at a glacial pace. ORE’s sound rewards the patient listener as their dissonant tones rub together, enhanced by the use of two custom-built resonant gong speakers. As described by sound artist, Mark Fell: “The music David Lynch would use if he was doing a Hovis advert.”
An artist who works with sound, presenting his work through guided walks, installation, and performance, responding to places and the things we see and hear. He uses field recordings, DIY electronics and communication, and wireless technology to make us think about the way we experience the world around us. Originally from Little Salkeld in the Fellfoot Forward area, he has performed in forests, caves, warehouses, up mountains, and in museums and art galleries all over the world.
An artist who delights in experimenting with songwriting and storytelling to create a beguiling mix of soaring vocals and atmospheric electronics. She performs as ‘melostme’. Jayne has released two albums, Arcans (2018) and The Good Noise (2020), performed live for BBC Radio 3’s After Dark Festival, as part of the 2022 BBC Proms, is a recipient of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award for Composers, and was an Artist in Residence at Sage Gateshead 2020-2021.
Noize Choir is a performance ensemble formed in 2011 by artists, Lindsay Duncanson and Marek Gabrysch. A collective of noise enthusiasts from the north of England that perform outside typical choral settings, language or musical notation. They have made vocal explorations of museum collections, imaginings of our geological past, replicating and experimenting with the sound of machines and the natural world. They push the idea of what a choir can be.
Jorge is an electro-acoustic musician, composer, sound designer, and installation artist from the United States. His music makes frequent use of the viola as well as other electronics and acoustic sound sources. Jorge has created work for live performance, film, art galleries, theatre, orchestras, and released recordings. Jorge produces music as Core of the Coalman.
Founded in 2002 and directed by Jilly Jarman, BlueJam Arts is a community music and arts organisation who run creative workshops and community performance activities for young people and adults in Penrith and across Cumbria. Blue Jam specialises in improvisation and performance, this could be folk, jazz or other styles from around the world.
Stomping Ground is Cumbrian artists Lily Horseman, Di Larfynn and Gemma Webb who deliver forest school, craft, making, and wild play activities for young people and children across the woods, forests, schools and community centres of Cumbria and North Lancashire.
Artist and journeywoman Alex is a contemporary multi-disciplinary and fine artist living in Cumbria. She has over 25 years of experience in delivering courses and workshops, and she also runs creative projects, in both schools and in the community.
Hazel Pickett
Hazel’s interest in bats grew in tandem with her twenty years as a percussionist. Her interests in observing wildlife behaviour and playing percussive rhythms took her to four continents in the 1980s and 1990s. With a degree in ecology, a family fledging, and thirty years of youth work behind her, she is now returning to some of her old favourite things to do. Enjoying the sounds of bats.
Paul Frodsham
Paul Frodsham has been passionate about Long Meg and Her Daughters for many years. He has worked as an archaeologist for more than 30 years and, in 2015, while working for the North Pennines AONB Partnership, led the first ever excavations at Long Meg. He runs an independent consultancy, ORACLE Heritage Services, and is an Honorary Fellow at Durham University. His main research interests lie in the Neolithic of northern England, especially ritual monuments and rock art. He also specialises in the development and delivery of community projects helping people to study all manner of things in their local areas.
Fellfoot Sounds programme
Saturday workshops
- Family friendly sound making with BlueJam Arts, making DIY lithophones and instruments using rocks, wood, wind and water.
- Family friendly nature activities with Stomping Ground, mud kitchens, potion making, nature printing and forest school.
- Field recording & sampling with Jayne Dent, the sounds collected were used in her performance later in the day.
- Folk voices with Jennifer Reid, a workshop about different dialects, accents and voices used in folk singing.
- Ambulation with Tim Shaw, a walk to explore the soundscapes with portable listening technology and wireless headphones.
- Bat walk with Hazel Pickett, tuning in to learn about their sounds, how they communicate and identify different species.
Saturday evening performances at St Michael and All Angels Church by Jorge Boehringer, Jayne Dent, Ore, Noize Choir – walk with the choir to Long Meg stone circle for a sunset performance.
Clubhouse – Fellfoot Sounds DJs and Jennifer Reid
Sunday workshops
- Morning bird song walk with Alex Jakob Whitworth, experience sounds of nature and make things that you can take home.
- Ambulation with Tim Shaw, a walk to explore the soundscapes with portable listening technology and wireless headphones.
- Long Meg and her Daughters stone circle with Paul Frodsham, find out about the history and pre-history of the stones.
Sunday morning performance by Jorge Boehringer at Little Meg stone circle
This event was part of the 2023 community arts project, ‘Everything Changes, Everything Stays the Same’, for the Fellfoot Forward Landscape Partnership Scheme. It was a not-for-profit event, part-funded by Arts Council England and Westmorland and Furness Council. The Fellfoot Forward Landscape Partnership Scheme is led by the North Pennines AONB Partnership and funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
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