What is SwN?
Let us start by saying what Singing With Nightingales is not… SWN is neither an ecology walk, a bird-watching expedition, or even a concert. It is a work of immersive theatre, staged by nature, told by humans and outshone by a very special bird.
Each year, for a short period from mid-April to May's end, five thousand pairs of nightingales fly to southern England from Sub-Saharan Africa. Here they take up songful residence as the males commence their famous - but much unknown - courtship night song. Amongst the scented blackthorn in the stillness of the spring air, we have the extraordinary privilege of seeking out these songbirds and making an auditorium of their thicket.
As you, our guests, and our invited musicians are led after dark into the woods, it is here, within ear-tingling proximity, that we are granted this exquisite opportunity to appreciate the improvised and virtuosic nature of the nightingale's song. Most significant is their ability to incorporate our music into theirs, the phenomenon which makes Singing with Nightingales one of the most unique and artistically profound nature experiences one can find in the world. An experience that, year after year, our supporters return for, to witness and be enchanted by.
“Gigs don’t come much more secret than this.”
The Guardian
What happens aT Singing with Nightingales?
Founded by folk singer, nature conservationist and writer Sam Lee, he and his fellow SWN hosts welcome a small audience each night, for seven weeks of the spring, to become part of our woodland camp. The whole event is in celebration of this bird’s legend and song as well as their magnificent role in our global ecology. Be captivated by stories of their African migration as well as their ubiquity in British and Northern Hemisphere’s cultural history, folklore, poetry and prose.
In this timeless gathering, we first share in food, drink, stories and music from Sam and our guest musicians around the fire before embarking on a nocturnal pilgrimage. This walk through the woods is taken in search of our nightingale to perform the now-famous duet of human and bird. This sublime act of musical reciprocity leaves no person unmoved and unconvinced of nature’s capacity to inspire awe and wonder.
When does it occur & why?
Singing With Nightingales occurs for only a short window as spring unfurls and the Nightingales are singing. Once they have mated, their night song ceases and silence returns to the woods. This brief moment, when the land is at her most beautiful, offers us a time to gather in the old way around a campfire and celebrate nature’s spectacle. Together we get to honour the rich cultural and folkloric connection we have to nature but also chart the trajectory we are on globally. Ultimately SWN is a celebratory way to appreciate deeply that of our need to protect both this red-list endangered species and the natural web their existence depends upon.
When does it occur & why?
Singing With Nightingales occurs for only a short window as spring unfurls and the nightingales are singing. Once they have mated, this songful spectacle ceases and silence returns to the nighttime woods. This brief moment, when the land is at her most beautiful, offers us a time to gather in the old way around a campfire and celebrate the nature’s spectacle. Together we honour the rich cultural and folkloric connection we have to nature but also chart the trajectory we are on globally to protect this red list endangered species and the natural web their existence depends upon.
A Creative Call to Action
In this time of ecological crisis where nature and humanity have never been more severed, might this small brown bird be an unlikely mascot and reminder of how we ‘are’ nature and not separate from her?
For how can we protect what we don't know and care for what we don’t love?
Art, and music above all, has always been the most potent means to bring about transformation. Could this song, so irrefutably the essence of the land, yet so vulnerable, when in sublime collaboration with our own song catalyse a genuine acknowledgement of our duty of responsibility to nature? We hope so! We believe wholeheartedly that the Nightingale is that wake-up call, an agent of change-making who softly convinces us to seek out better narratives of earth citizenship and stewardship. They are night-dream-makers that within their delirious expressions of wondermement bring us listeners into a new-found sense of respair, an awakening to what each of us might be on this earth to do. Let us take you there and hear it for yourself.
"The night was truly a once-in-a-lifetime magical experience…one of the most special experiences of my life.”
Carleen Anderson, Singer