Free Event
Featuring poetry recitals by: Michael Stewart, Gaia Holmes, Natalie Ann Holborow, Stephen Ely, Kirsten Norrie, Gail McConnell, Ashley Hickson-Lovence, Gerry Cambridge and Safia Khan, with music performed by The Woodland Trio of Tracey Smurthwaite (piccolo, doubling alto flute), Jennifer Moss (bass clarinet) and David Milsom (viola).
Geoffrey Cox (UK, 1963)
Tell It To The Trees (2024) 40’
Step into a woodland alive with poetry, music, and nature in Geoffrey Cox’s film, Tell It To The Trees.
Trailer:
Video Credit © Geoffrey Cox
Inspired by a young West Yorkshire woodland he helped plant with voluntary tree planting group the Colne Valley Tree Society in 2005, Cox returns to capture its beauty, mystery, and the rich biodiversity that has flourished over the years.
Cox says: “In 2021 I returned for the first time and was amazed at the rate of growth, beauty and mystery of this young woodland and the bio-diverse world that had been created. It came upon me then that I wanted to portray this special place, to delve into its sylvan inscrutabilities using the creative power of poetry, music, sound and imagery.
I invited nine poets and three musicians to the woodland and commissioned poems, wrote some music, and then filmed them through the seasons, reciting and performing in this ‘arboreal room’. They all literally told it to the trees.
I spent many days in the wood making recordings and sometimes, just sitting, looking and listening. I grew to know it well and eventually was able to make that portrayal, by catching the ever-changing light, the youthful majesty of the trees, and by interweaving the poems, now like mantras in my mind, with music inspired by the willow warblers that now live there. The delicate sounds of the woodland, and inspired by the poems’ content, sometimes those of the human world outside it, act as further sonic counterpoints.
In Tell It To The Trees we never leave the woodland physically, but our imaginations are encouraged to fly over it, beyond it; ‘to soothe what’s reeling inside’.”
Co-produced by CEADA, CeReNeM and hcmf// with support from the University of Huddersfield; additional support from Arts Council England
Photo: Tell It To The Trees © Geoffrey Cox
Getting There
Venue: Phipps Hall (Second Floor, Richard Steinitz Building)
Accessibility: Accessibility information is available here. Further information on campus accessibility is available on the University of Huddersfield website.
What three words: ///opera.flock.anyone
Address: Queensgate, England, HD1 3DH, United Kingdom.