A cross-genre ensemble with an ambitious vision
A creative engine based in Cumbria
Propellor are a twelve-piece daring cross-genre ensemble of multi-instrumentalists from a variety of musical backgrounds. Our performances, installations and multimedia projects map our collective experience of the natural world, through the lens of soundscape ecology.
“An ensemble who cross the worlds of folk, classical, electronic and experimental music. It twists and turns through different sound worlds. An intriguing project.”
Air Songs
Our latest project is a new violin concerto, a future environmental conspiracy and a massed vocal event all in one.
Air Songs will premiere in Cumbria in 2025.
“Welcome to APIS, your personal breathwork app with a difference. Developed to keep you healthy and happy.”
In the near future, there is a divide between those who live in clean air and those who do not. Air Songs are thought to be an oral tradition that has emerged out of an opposition movement in an age of climate inequality.
Anonymous broadcasts have started appearing across the world.
They interrupt app performance temporarily, transmitting words and music from environmental vanishing points: digital spectres. It’s unclear whether there is one group producing them, or a collective.
The app developers, Sentinel, are working with user data and AI to resolve this issue, but more and more people have started to question the reality and implications of the Air Songs.
“Please explore your surroundings freely and enjoy your breathwork app today. By collaborating with Sentinel, you are helping to create the next generation of health-enhancing tools, for everyone.”
a new violin concerto
a future environmental conspiracy
a massed vocal event
Conceived as a new work for solo violin and the kaleidoscopic 12-piece ensemble, Propellor, Air Songs unfolds as a four- movement violin concerto with a twist. Soloist David Le Page and the ensemble weave a musical thread around a narrator, with the audience guided through a series of vocalisations and ways of engaging with the soundscape.
It is the near future, and as an audience member you are already part of the story: by engaging with a fictional breathwork app called APIS the listener begins to unravel a conspiracy.
The music and story of Air Songs is mapped to different performance locations. The audience is invited to move, vocalise and explore that place alone or in groups.
An urgent narrative unfolds and as the Air Songs story comes to a dramatic climax, the app’s author reveals their true identity, implicating the listener in the process.
Disconnecting from the app and galvanised as a crowd, Air Songs becomes a live interactive performance piece. There are vocal leaders in the crowd, a solo violinist, people are starting to sing. You find yourself in the middle of a protest, the audience are becoming a choir...
You’re left with a question: will you join the resistance and use your voice?
vocal workshops and group composition
Using the same tools that the creative team have built Air Songs with, the participatory workshops that accompany the project are closely bound to the narrative.
There are two types of workshop - one for vocal leaders in the community: sharing ideas, music and tools that they can incorporate in their own group sessions if they wish.
A second workshop is for anyone interested in participating as an audience member: you will be guided through a piece written by Kerry Andrew that sets the scene for the world of Air Songs, invited to record some sound design using the sound tables (pictured) and then supported through a workshop performance of the final movement of the piece...
You are the resistance, by turning up and lending your voice, your story is Air Songs too.
working with new lead artists
In addition to our own in-house work, Propellor create work alongside some of the most exciting artists in various genres and artforms. These projects inform our process, reach new audiences and are creatively connected to our ethos as an ensemble.
Ness
“Ness will enliven the most jaded palette”
‘Ness’ released on Domino in September 2024 is a reworking of acclaimed writer Robert MacFarlane and Stanley Donwood’s epic illustrated prose poem. Alongside singer Hayden Thorpe (Wild Beasts) and composer/author Kerry Andrew the book has become an album and touring show, it was premiered at National Trust’s Orford Ness site and on tour in 2025-2026.
past projects
Propellor are a project-based ensemble. This means we are able to adapt to a changing cultural landscape and make the work that feels most urgent and compelling to us.
Flight explores the worlds of birds, soundscape ecology and music.
The 12-piece ensemble Propellor and its director Jack McNeill, invite the listener to join them as they dive into ideas about how we listen, what we listen to, and why it matters.
Following the amazing migratory journeys of three birds, and a musical ensemble trying out new ways of making music together. Flight is also a personal journey about new fatherhood, uncovering connections between the soundscape ecology of everyday lives, where listening to the health of the world around us, can tell us much more than our eyes alone. A collaboration with best-selling author Mark Cocker, Leafcutter John and a host of fascinating guests.
Flight is an acclaimed 8-part podcast and touring show with various chamber ensemble iterations (Propellor // Flight Patterns), a live radio show (Propellor // Flight In Conversation) and a full ensemble show with live generated visuals and dancer. Flight was supported by Arts Council England, Brewery Arts (Kendal) and Propellor's Kickstarter community.
"Flight is a rare bird –– a podcast that pushes the boundaries of sound-speech-music collaboration, fusing beauty, passion and politics into a fascinating, immersive exploration of birds and people."
Robert MacFarlane
"What a joy to tumble into the sound world of Propellor’s Flight - a mesmeric auditory journey into bird migration, landscape and the art of listening. It bubbles with scientific enquiry, sonic wonder and reflections on our uneasy human coexistence with greater-than-human life. And through it all, tugging at your hand, such vivid new music."
Karine Polwart
Loom
Loom (n.) The slow and silent movement of water in a deep pool (Cumbrian dialect)
Loom follows the watercourse backwards from the sea to the sky, incorporating a full ensemble score, live visuals, real world sounds and interviews. The soaring instrumental score and found sounds are the sonic counterpart of a collective, human element, as the work also features recorded interviews and personal stories as told by audience members. The sounds of waves, wetlands, and straits map the human experience of water - encouraging conversation and shared community experiences of our coastlines, estuaries, rivers, lakes and floodplains - Loom was created to inspire and share our stories of these waterscapes.
"An incredible journey through sound and image. Profoundly moving and inspirational."
Audience Member (Festival of New, Snape Maltings)
Following a two-year Open Space residency at Britten Pears Arts, we had a short summer residency at The Glasshouse in Gateshead and then toured Loom around the UK, sharing the music in workshops and creating site-specific collaborations at each performance with choirs, poets, dancers, photographers, writers and guest musicians.
"Truly magical to be with that immense music making. Involuntary dancing occurred, it was at times overwhelming – but in a great way."
Audience Member (Lakeside Arts, Nottingham)
"Invigorating, moving, transported me to another world. So many wonderful moments that delighted my spirit."
Audience Member (Lakes Alive, Kendal)
"It was absolutely stunning! It almost felt like a spell was cast on the hall...mesmerising. Thank you."
Audience Member (UoS Octagon, Sheffield)
“Sublimely beautiful! Incredibly talented musicians and singers. I was deeply moved, thank you!”
Audience Member (Town Hall, Birmingham)
We are collaborators…
Loom was a work that folded in collaborations and sparked our passion for working between and with different art forms, ecologies and communities. Loom collaborated with choirs, poets, artists, dancers, photographers, musicians, explorers, writers and musicians. A river in flow…
It began a journey that has continued through Flight, Ness and Air Songs. Working across disciplines to communicate ideas, stories and thrill audiences.
support us
Would you like to help Propellor continue to make work in the UK? Our vision is to become a collaborative hub in the North West…
