Michael Fairfax: Ear Harps and other playthings

Part of the Sound Forest music activities of Merry Monmouth Day on Saturday 4 May, 12 noon-5pm, Drybridge Park, Monmouth, NP25 3EG.

If you come down to the wood today you can make and play the trees…

FREE and family-friendly activities – just turn up and join in or sit back, listen and watch.

Come and join Michael as he creates and plays the beautiful Singing Tree, ear harps and extra-ordinary stringed instruments hewn from the woods.  

Michael Fairfax is a sculptor, public artist and sound explorer who creates large one-off musical sculptures for the public to interact with. He lives in rural Somerset surrounded by trees, woods, valleys, rivers, owls, ravens and much more more. This is the driving motivation that touches his creativity, an essence of sensitivity to the violence and beauty of nature, a desire to create pieces that become the mythology of the future. 

Michael graduated from Newport College of Fine Art, since working throughout the UK and abroad. He worked with Welsh National Opera on a 6 month improvisation project and recently returned from a British Council funded trip to Thailand where he held a number of workshops creating Ear Harps with artists in Chiang Mai and also with Karen Villagers in the jungle who also create their own type of harps from the branches of trees. His public art can be found around the country including major works in Exeter and Newbury.

Access Information

• This activity is accessible to people in wheelchairs
• It is very relaxed so you can come and stay for as long as you want to, and leave when you are ready
• There is very limited seating in the park. We will bring some hay bales, but you may want to bring your own seating if you cannot stand for long.
• There will be live music created in this activity but it will not be amplified