Treeline

This is the final concert from maverick composer Graham Fitkin’s pan-European forest-focused 2500-mile cycle tour from Romania back to the UK. Graham has worked with communities from the Carpathian Mountains to Epping Forest, collecting data and sounds from specific trees which are woven into an extraordinary work for piano and keyscanner. Join us for the culmination of this amazing multi-threaded project.

Arrive early for the pre-concert talk at 6:45pm, free to concert ticketholders. Click here to find out more.

Historically, forests used to cover much of Europe. Now they don’t. Forests provide bio-diversity, mitigate soil erosion, filter water, cool micro/macro climates, sequester carbon and much more.

Following a line of old-growth forests and remnants through Europe, Treeline connects communities to their own environments, trees and forests. It reveals new perspectives on trees through music, data, field recordings and concert performances to engender greater respect for trees and biodiversity, and increase understanding of why these things are so important.

Treeline’s partners throughout Europe range from music venues, festivals and environmental charities to city halls, universities, village communities and schools. Each collaborator has brought a community together to choose and ‘profile’ a local tree of importance to them. Each collaborator approaches this differently, depending on the tree, its local significance, topography and history. Graham Fitkin uses all this information in a new hour-long work for piano and keyscanner, adapted to play the tree sounds as a newly created ‘forest instrument’.

This final concert at Kings Place will feature the internal sounds from inside a very old beech tree in Epping Forest where Graham worked with Epping Forest Charity to collect sounds and information.

This event will last approximately 60-70 minutes, with no interval.

About Graham Fitkin

Graham is a composer and pianist. He is increasingly interested in the intersections between environment, science and societal change. He composes for live performance, installation, dance, media and recording, and works with people & communities, acoustic & electronic instruments, field recordings and interviews.

He has been Composer in Residence with the London Chamber Orchestra and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. He has composed for the likes of New York City Ballet, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Nederlands Blazersensemble, Sacconi Quartet, Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott, Will Gregory, Shezad Dawood, Piano Circus and the Tate.

Recent works include Geography for Ars Musica Brussels and Constant Partial Attention for the Tana Quartet. He lives in Cornwall with his partner, the harpist Ruth Wall.