Sing with the sunflowers, bop with the buttercups, mosh with the mustard.
John has dug into his musical roots to cultivate an evergreen performance exploring the flora and fauna of the English Garden, through comic songs.
Ensonglopedia has so far been commissioned to write three collections of plant songs – by Cambridge University Botanic Garden (2018), Kew Gardens in London (2019), and Foundry Wood in Leamington Spa (2020).
Ensonglopedia of Plants (Cambridge University Botanic Garden version)
John Hinton first wrote a suite of songs for Cambridge University Botanic Garden in 2014, before he started his company Ensonglopedia. Then, in 2018, when the Garden decided to redesign their historic systematics beds, and build a new Rising Path for visitors to be able to see these beds from above for the first time, they asked John to come back and write songs about ten selected plant families.
There are music videos to two of the songs on YouTube: Hot Dang! The Mustard Song and Let’s Call The Whole Thing Nightshade, and here’s the album of all eleven songs on Bandcamp:
Ensonglopedia of Plants (Kew Gardens version)
In 2019, Kew Gardens in London commissioned John to write 15 minutes of original song material about evergreen trees, which he performed three times a day for a fortnight as part of their Woodland Wonders sesason. This became the second Ensonglopedia of Plants.
‘Nature Under Lock(down) and Key(change)’
In the summer of 2020 we were commissioned by Live and Local to collaborate with the beautiful Foundry Wood in Leamington Spa to write a series of songs about people’s relationship with nature during the Covid-19 lockdown, based on visits to the wood and the answers to a questionnaire that was sent out to local people. Check out the online performance and here’s the studio-recorded album:
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COMMISSION AN ENSONGLOPEDIA OF YOUR OWN PLANTS!
Our garden is growing. We have had interest from a couple more public gardens about writing plant ensonglopedias for them, and we’d be very interested in hearing from you!
After a site visit to your public (or private!) garden, John will compose original songs about the special plants that can be found there. These can be performed next to the plants themselves, as a guided singing tour, or in any suitable indoor or outdoor space. The songs can also be made available as professionally produced recordings.
Please contact us to discuss the possibilities.