the lark ascending

Two films commissioned for Richard King’s The Lark Ascending concert at The Barbican in March 2020.

Filming, editing, sound recording and sound design by Rob St John. Narration of ‘The Temporary Shelter‘ and ‘Epilogue‘ from ‘The Lark Ascending: The Music of the British Landscape‘ (2019) recorded at home by Richard King.

Each film features new sound recordings and compositions by Rob St John, alongside excerpts of previous work in Surface Tension, Soundmarks, Concrete Antenna, Modern Studies, Emergent Landscapes and Sing the Gloaming. Additional sound recordings from the Finnish Broadcasting Company, Yle Archives used under a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY).

You will hear: larks, curlews, lapwings, oystercatchers, swifts, fence wires bowing in the wind, underwater photosynthesis, tank fire heard through metal warning signs, decaying oceanic communication cables, creaking sea ice, water running through plant stems, the resonance of underground bunkers and boreholes, electromagnetic fields, upland springs and more.