What is Eco Opera?

Eco Opera is a set of bespoke musical instrument sound installations that are ‘played’ by wind, rain and animals, located in deepest Stirlingshire, Scotland. Few of us listen attentively to the sounds of nature that endlessly flood our senses. Eco Opera opens ears using innovative techniques to amplify normally inaudible noises. Everyday sounds are transformed into music.

Is it Music or Video?

Although everything is captured in high definition video, the work is driven by sound and music. The vision shows us the sound source. Really, the vision and the audio are equal servants in the delivery of this unique environmental music..

Bird Feeder

Bird Feeder is fitted with guitar strings for birds to ‘play’. Visitors include, among others, all manner of tits, nuthatches, pigeons, pheasants and woodpeckers. Melodies and rhythms abound as the birds peck, flap and strut their way across the strings and perches. Contact microphones reveal a rich inner sound world.

Amplified Fence

The Fence is 50m of high-tensile wire. Contact microphones are fitted on the end posts. The slightest touch activates a complex and resonant inner sound world. Seed trays attract, among others, magpies, crows, jackdaws and rooks. An amplified wire was used to create the sound effect for Star Wars light sabres – ‘piu piu’.

Sonic Tube

The sonic tube amplifies and transforms sound. Random and seemingly chaotic sounds enter the tube as noise but blend and soften through the harmonic filter of the tube itself. Birdsong, insects, aeroplanes, people, sheep, cows…in fact, everything becomes calm, meditative music.

Bird Feeder has tuned perches and strings