The Singing Bones

A COllaboration with Jessie McMeekin (storytelling) & JP WOrsfold (musician)

If we imagine them hard enough, will these shadows of a wilder past start to move again? Could we sing these bones back to life, even just for one night?

In the midst of a biodiversity crisis, Borrowdale’s ancient yew trees are singing a special song just for you, so step into the grove and let the breath sigh out of you.

JP Worsfold and Anne-Marie Sanderson are two Cumbrian musicians whose haunting lyrics and shimmering harmonies weave visions of the wildlife that the Borrowdale Yews have witnessed being pushed to the brink of extinction, but now nature is making a comeback: A goshawk shivers across the sky, an otter dances in the river, a tree sings in the forest, rare alpine plants cling to isolated crags yearning for their soulmates.

Threading between the songs come shadows of a wilder past. Well-known local legends of the last wolf in Westmorland and the last wild boar in Cumbria are re-imagined by storyteller Jessie McMeekin as she spins yarns about the last eagles in the Lakes and leads us towards hopes of a wilder future.

The Singing Bones is both a soulful meditation on the beautiful and fragile natural world which surrounds us, and a powerful celebration of the difference that humans can make in the world when we work and act together.

Book tickets to our first performance, at the NT Footprint Building in Windermere on 1st Dec 2024 here.