Forest sounds around world inspire music for festival

MUSICIANS have been commissioned by the organisers of a National Forest festival to create music in response to crowd-sourced sounds from forests and woodlands across the world.

Erland Cooper, Hinako Omori and Jason Singh will perform at next year’s Timber Festival on July 2 to 4, celebrating our relationship to trees and forests.

In May, Timber Festival asked people to submit one-minute sound recordings of woodlands near where they live to contribute to the first global forest soundmap.

Sounds of the Forest was created to encourage others across the globe to share in the harmonies of the natural world.

About 550 people from more than 50 countries have contributed short audio postcards. So far it has sounds from every continent except Antarctica.

Rowan Cannon and Sarah Bird, directors of Wild Rumpus, and partners with the National Forest Company in creating Timber Festival, said: “As it became clear that Timber Festival 2020 could not happen due to coronavirus restrictions, we knew we would need to find a different way of helping people to connect to and be inspired by nature.”

John Everitt, chief executive of the

National Forest Company, said: “We are excited to have such innovative artists taking our sound postcards from forests around the world and creating music inspired by nature.

“Sounds of the Forest shows how important the trees and woods on our doorstep are, especially during the pandemic.”