Nigel Shaw

Nigel and his partner Carolyn are renowned musicians & artists who live and work on a thousand-year old farm in the ancient belly of Dartmoor, a mist-veiled landscape of wild hills, peat bogs and heather moors in the south-west of England. The inspiration for all their work is drawn from the raw beauty, untamed spirit and primordial memory of this ancestral land. Their creative output includes music albums and concerts, books and workshops, paintings and art installations, traditional flute and drum making. They have built a large Neolithic-style roundhouse at their farm, a ceremonial ancestor house created from granite, oak and grass/reed thatch, which sits at the heart of the teaching circles and gatherings they host on their land. Their recorded albums and live performances form a mystical weave of ancient instruments, wild songs and tender music, using wooden flutes, clay & tin whistles, overtone flutes, piano, small pipes, dulcimer, Jura guitar, cello, many types of hand drums and percussion. For 25 years they have been making many of their own instruments, as well as regularly teaching flute and drum making workshops on Dartmoor. Nigel carves flutes that carry the songs of these islands, using woods indigenous to Britain, including oak, yew, ash, holly and thorn. Carolyn creates traditional frame drums from skins sourced from the moor and prepared by hand at their farm, primarily red deer, wild horse and salmon. They have travelled across the world with their work, including Australia, USA, Japan, Jamaica, Canada, Central & South America, Siberian Arctic, Russia, throughout Europe and the UK. Their concert tours have carried them from Dartmoor to Scotland, from mountain temple to tundra camp, from festival tent to ritual cave. On their Dartmoor farm they regularly host concert events that have included Rivenstone, a much-loved festival of sacred world music.

Nigel founded Seventh Wave Music 1985 and over 35 years has produced a profound and diverse collection of recordings. His soul-filled instrumental works and his ability to infuse his music with a powerful yearning for wild nature have come to define a unique approach to sacred sound. Classic albums such as The River and Echoes of the Ancient Forest continue to be widely cherished decades after their initial release. In recent years he has composed a series of gentle albums that honour the sweet and raw ancient moorland landscape (Dartmoor Journey, Dartmoor Roundhouse, Flow) the soft beauty of night (Nocturnes) and the intricacy of the mourning journey (Requiem). He composed and recorded Dartmoor Symphony as a live orchestral project, and has created and directed musically dynamic projects with the albums Bones (a celebration and lament for ancient people and remembered land), Ancestors (inspired by songs of the indigenous people of the Siberian Arctic) and Exile (honouring the human experience of displacement). He is co-founder and performer with Bamboo Cedar Oak, a brotherhood of master flute players that includes Guillermo Martinez (USA) and Hiroki Okano (Japan). His work continues to encompass wilder strands of electronic dance music with the vintage festival band Global.