About The Tree Song Project

The Tree Song Project is a musical project using song, music and public installation to explore and celebrate the topic of trees devised and directed by ecological music artist Phoebe Coco.

The Tree Song Project ran for two years across the green spaces in the London Bourough of Islington as a borough wide Tree Song Trail, supported by Islington Council and Sound & Music.

This culminated in a live performance in Gillespie Ecology center, coinciding with the Urban Tree Festival.

How does the Tree Song Trail work?

Specially recorded tree-inspired songs were mapped out on a specially created tree walk installation. Members of the public were invited to scan the mounted QR codes underneath the trees to hear the trees song.

Audience members scanning the QR codes with their phones

They could then hear the song that had been specially created and recorded for the tree

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Members of the public could follow the mapped route, or interact with the the trail as a chance encounter in their local green space

The trail could also be accessed remotely through tree trail app Ticl

Live Tree Song Performances

Under the trees in Gillespie Ecology center, we led a series of performances under the canopy of the trees open for the public to attend as part of the Urban Tree Festival program.

Acapella performance took place under the trees

Each performance lasted around 15 minutes throughout the days, attracting both local park users and an audience who had signed up beforehand. All the audience members learnt a tree song to take home with them!

The local councillors, who funded part of this project, were part of the audience

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Audience were invited to eat the fruits of the trees and scan our wooden QR plaques to further follow the tree song trail.

Phoebe Coco

Music Artist and Director

Phoebe Coco is a London based interdisciplinary music artist interweaving environmental themes with music, songwriting and singing practices. Her work has been featured on BBC 6 Music, Radio 4, and BBC Radio 2, such as her EP I am Not a Machine and album My White Horse & I. Her practice highlights how contemporary and folk music can reflect environmental themes and inspire ecological shifts in our behaviour, research which she shares on a monthly radio show The Phoebe Coco Eco Show on Voices radio and informs the devising and development of The Tree Song Project, which celebrates trees through musical installation, song and tree walks. Phoebe Coco uses music and singing as an artistic device for community building, information sharing and hope building to uplift and unite audiences.