New Release

“Ellie Wilson’s Listen to the River Ching gives voice to this magickal watercourse, featuring field recordings, composition and readings the Ching speaks to us through Ellie’s enchanting creation. Such a beautiful tribute to this essential capillary of London”

— John Rogers writer/film-maker (thelostbyway.com)

Listen to the River Ching is a project taking place at Brookfield Path in Highams Park E4, funded by a ‘Make It Happen’ grant from London Borough of Waltham Forest.

This new music composition grew from a series of workshops led by composer Ellie Wilson for pupils with vision impairment at Joseph Clarke School. They visited the River Ching to explore the landscape through sound and collaborative listening. Together, they captured a sonic portrait of the environment using hydrophones and microphones.

The resulting composition combines percussion and whispered voices (water spirits) captured in the classroom with field recordings of the riverbank and its underwater world. This is combined with violin, synthesiser, piano, percussion and sound design for an immersive experience, evoking the flow of the river as it meanders through Epping Forest and slips quietly past back gardens, playing fields and allotments.

A reading from Henry Hawkins’ 1895 book Epping Forest – London’s Great Legacy (from a copy that belonged to Ellie’s great-grandfather) is incorporated into the piece, connecting past and present through place, memory and listening.

Release date: 6 May

Ellie Wilson composer, violin, hardanger fiddle, voice, sound design
Pupils from Joseph Clarke School whispered voices, shakers
Thom Ashworth mix, master, sound design
Ryan Pearce cover image and video

New Music Biennial

I’m delighted that my new work Moth X Human has been selected for PRSF New Music Biennial 2025. Environmental and biodiversity issues are something I’m passionate about and this piece will highlight the impact that habitat loss, climate change and light pollution has on our nocturnal pollinators.

 In collaboration with biodiversity scientists at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, my piece explores the positive use of AI for conservation. Part data sonification, part notated composition, the work is an interspecies dialogue. Alongside a small ensemble and electronics, moth activity data collected from UK locations is used to generate and manipulate sounds.

Dr Jenna Lawson of UKCEH, said:

“At a time of rapid biodiversity loss and climate change, it is essential that we understand and appreciate the value of nature and the consequences of habitat loss and destruction. The data we collect as scientists highlights both the remarkable diversity of nature and consequences of its loss, however the challenge often lies in presenting this information in an interesting and informative way.

“This project will showcase the wonder of nature through music, specifically focusing on moths and the natural world that comes awake while we sleep. These fascinating creatures are essential for our ecosystems, pollinating many flowers, trees and crops during the night, but are underappreciated. We hope Ellie’s interpretation of our scientific data through a musical composition will show people the remarkable night-time biodiversity of the UK.”

Press release

The piece will be performed at the two festival weekends:

6-8 June 2025 Bradford City of Culture
4-6 July South Bank Centre

Broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and released on NMC Recordings.

Commissioned by Oxford Contemporary Music
Supported by UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH)

New single: Unnamed Unseen + Music Video

Unnamed Unseen is the first single from my solo album Memory Islands. Written for Hardanger fiddle and electronics, it is inspired by a line from Robert Macfarlane's book Landmarks about nature words falling out of our language. “Once they go unnamed they go to some degree unseen. Language deficit leads to attention deficit.”

The music video was made by Marry Waterson, woven with hand painted film and drawing on themes of nature and fading/lost memories.

Download & Stream single: https://ffm.to/unnamed-unseen
CD/DL/Stream album: https://bfan.link/memory-islands

Singing with Nightingales

Here's last night's broadcast for #earthday #singingwithnightingales. It's a beautiful listen from start to finish but this link drops you in straight at my little piece for hardanger fiddle called Unnamed/Unseen.

Produced by the Nest Collective and hosted by folk singer Sam Lee this free audio broadcast, live on YouTube, takes you on a journey into the woods of Sussex to hear the unforgettable song of the nightingale.

New Single: The Lopper and the Landgrabber

The Lopper and the Landgrabber is the first single from my album & sound installation Echoes: Unearthing Stories of the Forest, created during my artistic residency in Epping Forest. The song tells the story of how working-class activism helped save the forest from enclosure during the 19th century.

My main focus for the song is Thomas Willingale, a labourer from Loughton who continued to practise his ancient right of lopping trees in Epping Forest despite strong resistance from the Lord of the Manor. Thomas played an important role in saving Epping Forest and the Willingale story is a wonderful collection of fact and folklore, including court cases, prison sentences and devious plots. There is also a personal connection - he is my 5 x Great Uncle! The folk song’s title takes its name from a William Morris quote. He complained that “the grip of the land grabber is over us all; and commons and heaths of unmatched beauty and wildness have been enclosed for farmers or jerry-built upon by speculators in order to swell the ill-gotten revenues of some covetous aristocrat or greedy money-bag”. The first two verses and first line of the chorus are from poems The Mores and Remembrances by John Clare, who lived for some time at Fairmead House in High Beach, a private asylum run by Dr Matthew Allen. The ‘mind-forg’d manacles’ – a nod to William Blake’s London – are a call to remove the mental chains that restrict those that do not question injustice. You can read more over on my blog here.

I’m joined on this track by Thom Ashworth (vocals, bass, mandolin) and Fran Foote (vocals).

Enclosure came and trampled on the grave
Of labours rights and left the poor a slave
Each little tyrant with his little sign
Shows where man claims earth glows no more divine

It levelled every bush and tree and hill
Hung moles for traitors though the brook runs still
And birds and trees and flowers without a name
All sighed when lawless law’s enclosure came

Enclosure like a Bonaparte let not a thing remain
No rest until it’s torn apart, the landgrabbers’ claim

Old Tom made his living on the land
And at the stroke of midnight made his stand
He lopped a branch from winter’s leafless oak
To save the forest for the Common folk

Back to the inn he entered with the limb
And held it high before the crowd within
No Lord would part him from his ancient right
As he leapt the fence upon St Martin’s Night

The lords and ladies take what’s yours and mine
But lop a branch and you shall do the time
You’ll pick the tarry oakums, tread the mill
For gathering fuel to beat the winter’s chill

Remove those mind-forged manacles and see
The forest’s fate depends on you and me
And beauty all around you’ll never lack
Cos in the end we’ll go and steal it back

Echoes: Unearthing Stories from the Forest is available to order now.

The sound installation runs from 12.11.2019 – 05.01.2020
The View Visitor Centre, Chingford, Epping Forest (FREE - just turn up!)