But this is no holiday destination for Joel, visitors to the popular National Trust reserve will be able to see and hear Joel at work, as he composes music inspired by his surroundings.
The National Trust were delighted to presents musician, composer and performer, Joel Pike. Inspired by the natural world and, Joel is taking up residence at Cardingmill Valley all week (21-25 June).
He’ll be heading out onto the Hills to gather some musical inspiration before returning to the pop-up music studio at the site, to experiment with new sounds and compositions.
Aside from his studies with Bangor University, he creates and performs music under the artist name Tiny Leaves, and his critically acclaimed music has been globally broadcast on radio, including this year on the likes of BBCRadio3, BBC6music, New York's WNYC (Newsounds), KEXP and beyond.
He is exploring making music in the landscape as part of his postgraduate studies at Bangor University this June, he explains:
"To immerse myself in the landscape I'm representing in music for my MMUS at Bangor, I'm taking part as an artist in residence on location at the National Trust site at Cardingmill Valley in the Shropshire Hills.
I hope to set up a pop-up music studio in the National Trust cafe/shop space, and make short trips into the surrounding landscape to make field recordings and notes. This will enable me to make immediate sketches in music on returning to the make-shift studio. The studio is in a prominent ground-floor position with large windows which will allow the many passers by a live view of an artist in residence creating music. I’m also hoping to have a live feed in speakers out onto the main concourse, so that people can hear my music being created.
The title of my MMUS is "A sonic representation of a quiet and vast landscape; it's geology, ecology and past and present histories" and what better way to gather primary research and inspiration for music making, than to be set up in this landscape as an artist in residence, for a week.
It is also the first time such a thing has happened at this national trust site and the hope is this experience allows for mutual growth in how we interact with the landscape and the scope for engaging the arts with such a national trust site as this."
Joel’s music can be heard here: https://linktr.ee/tinyleaves
