SINGING WITH NIGHTINGALES

I was mesmerised last weekend to watch the Country File article on Sam Lee singing with nightingales and discovered the wonderful cellist Beatrice Harrison who regularly drew great crowds to hear her play with the master song birds! 
Sam's own attempts are staggering IMHO and worth a listen . . . . . . . . 

Late in the evening on 19th May, 1924, the BBC made its first live wildlife outside broadcast, from the cellist Beatrice Harrison's garden. A nightingale joined in, singing as she played. Listeners were so entranced by this duet that the cello and nightingale concerts were broadcast annually, eagerly awaited by listeners around the globe.
To celebrate the 90th anniversary of this remarkable musical event, the folk musician Sam Lee finds, somewhere in southern England, "some melodious plot/ Of beechen green, and shadows numberless", as Keats puts it in his 'Ode to a Nightingale', and himself sings "of summer with full throated ease". Sam, with the cellist Francesca Ter-Berg, violinist Flora Curzon and viola player Laurel Pardue, sings songs that feature nightingales, such as 'The Tan Yard Side', to the nightingales as they sing in the thickets.
Sam considers our relationship with this amazing songster, which itself appears in so many songs and poems, and we hear, too, Beatrice's reminiscence of that first nightingale broadcast, 90 years ago.
Producer: Julian May

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b044m17b

https://soundcloud.com/samleesongs/sl-singing-with-the-nightingales-wav

Spring song

Steve Brown Joins Mercury-prize nominated folk musician Sam Lee for a gig with a difference. Sam’s hosting special woodland-based sessions this spring, which aim to encourage Nightingales to sing along. The first ever BBC outside radio broadcast, recorded Cellist, Beatrice Harrison, playing her cello in her garden, accompanied by the spectacular song of the Nightingale. Steve meets the Anglian Water conservation team and local Wildlife Trust, who are working to encourage Nightingales back to their breeding grounds. Sadly, their numbers have declined by 90% in just 100 years.

Help to conserve wildlife in your area with your local Wildlife Trust
BBOWT

Spring Watch - Spring Special

 Mercury prize nominee Sam Lee