‘Wild Concerto’ by Former Police Drummer Stewart Copeland Blends Nature Sounds With Music

In a new collaboration between former Police drummer Stewart Copeland and British naturalist Martyn Stewart — titled Wild Concerto — the chirps of Arctic terns blend with other wildlife calls and orchestral music to create a multi-layered soundscape.

The unique composition by Copeland, a seven-time Grammy award-winner, drew on Stewart’s field recordings, reported The Guardian.

Copeland said none of the recordings of nature had been re-tuned or manipulated in any way.

“All the bird and animal sounds are exactly as they were, but I put them in positions so that they add up to a melody and rhythm,” Copeland said. “Instead of sopranos and tenors, I’m working with hyenas, wolves and a chorus of birds. Their voices bring an unparalleled authenticity to the music.”

The “collaboration between nature and music” — including a frog-saxophone duet and a piano nocturne accompanied by the hoot of an Asian barred owlet — will be performed on tour by Copeland, the nature recordings and the 30-musician Kingdom Orchestra.

‘The synergy is amazing’: Stewart Copeland album fuses nature and music

[image or embed]

— The Guardian (@theguardian.com) February 14, 2025 at 4:55 AM

“They all have their own individual, often atonal melodies but when you put a flute against a red-breasted nuthatch, for example, the synergy is amazing,” Copeland said. “I picked out sounds that I felt were the soloists, like the wolves, and others that were more atmospheric, like the wild winds of Antarctica, and treated them in a similar way to a trombone or a guitar… The wolves are howling with great soul, great passion, and accompanied by a trombone following their line. It’s jazz, the jazz wolf of the Arctic tundra.”

Wild Concerto was inspired by the Arctic to Antarctica migration of Arctic terns, as well as some of the animals and birds they potentially encounter on their journey.

Over the course of six decades, Stewart captured many of the natural sounds that have been featured in natural history shows like Blue Planet, as well as roughly 150 films, such as Frozen and Cold Mountain.

“Many of these species are endangered and their sounds could vanish in our lifetime. Through the Wild Concerto, their voices are immortalised,” Stewart said.

Stewart, who has been called “the David Attenborough of sound,” has an archive of nearly 100,000 recordings from more than 60 countries.

“I was so sceptical about sticking natural sounds with music. So many saunas and salons play new age music with pianos and oceans and I thought that’s what it was going to sound like. But I was just gobsmacked,” Stewart said.

Stewart hopes the pioneering composition will raise awareness of species that have gone extinct, are endangered or have been impacted by noise pollution to the extent that a clean recording cannot be made of their calls.

“Two-thirds of the species in my library are now basically extinct. Twenty-five or 30 years ago, when I wanted to record one pristine hour of sound, it took about three or four hours to do that with minimal editing,” Stewart said. “Today, if I want to record an hour’s pristine sound, it takes about 2,000 hours to get that because there are so many manmade sounds in the environment… There’s about 10 endangered species on the album… poison dart frogs, wolves, Galápagos tortoise.”

Stewart’s entire archive has been donated to nonprofit The Listening Planet. Co-founded with Amanda Hill, Stewart’s niece, the charity promotes conservation, celebrates biodiversity and “reminds the world why nature’s voice is worth listening to.”

The artwork for the Wild Concerto album cover was created by Diana Beltrán Herrera and consists of intricate layers of beautifully crafted paper figures.

Wild Concerto will be released by Platoon Records in April. On Earth Day — April 22 — Copeland and fellow composer Arash Safaian will meet at London’s Kings Place to discuss their composition and the more extensive relationship between nature and music, before Copeland embarks on a nationwide tour in October.