“A string tree is the place where the strings meet the top of a harp, or the top of a guitar,” Artistic Director, Adrian Brendel explains. “So there’s a very literal instrumental image there.” But he was also drawn to the way it sounded — musical, rooted, and quietly evocative of Dorset’s landscape. “It’s got something bucolic about it, which felt right for where we are.”
Yet the real origin of the name goes deeper, and further back. One of the most important figures in Adrian’s life was the composer Harrison Birtwistle, who died in 2022. “He was one of the most inspirational people I ever knew, and I was very lucky to call him a close friend. I spent a lot of time with him towards the end of his life.”
Birtwistle had a gift for titles. “He was brilliant at thinking of names for pieces,” Adrian recalls. Tree of Strings was the title of a string quartet Birtwistle wrote for the Arditti Quartet, and it stayed with Adrian for years. He asked Birtwistle where it came from.
“The piece was inspired by a poem by a Gaelic poet, Sorley MacLean,” Adrian says. Birtwistle had spent time living on Raasay in the Hebrides, and the poem described an island with a rich musical tradition — one that was gradually suppressed and eventually extinguished by the Presbyterian Church. “Harry then re-imagined that music tradition through his own imagination.”
For Adrian, that idea has never lost its power. “I really love that as a metaphor — for regeneration. Music reimagined again into something new.” When Birtwistle allowed the title to be reused, the connection felt instantly right. “Even though Tree of Strings isn’t about avant-garde music, Harry was such an enormous figure in my life. It felt meaningful to carry that legacy forward.”
Over time, the image of a tree began to shape the project itself. “What we’re trying to do is threefold,” Adrian explains. “We’re concentrating on bringing education projects into schools, providing opportunities for young musicians starting out, and then creating spaces where they can play alongside more experienced musicians.” The important thing, he says, is that these branches aren’t separate. “There’s a lot of intertwining going on deliberately. That cross-fertilisation is really important.”
The first real seed of Tree of Strings was planted after the end of Plush Festival, which Adrian developed, as artistic director, in Dorset for over 20 years until 2017. Then came the pandemic, and a period of reassessment. The family moved, priorities shifted, and the realities facing music education became harder to ignore.
A conversation with music educator Ellen Marsden brought the ideas into focus. “We talked for a long time about how we might try to help each other,” Adrian says. “I could bring talented young musicians into schools — but more than that, it was about how these different perspectives could come together into something more powerful.”
Building Tree of Strings hasn’t been simple. “You’d normally keep these things separate,” Adrian reflects. “Education here, performance there.” Bringing them together meant carefully learning how to communicate the vision.
Place continues to shape everything. “Dorset is stunningly beautiful,” Adrian says. “And if you can make music somewhere with a strong sense of community, or a special landscape, it really deepens the experience — for musicians and audiences alike.”
Tree of Strings is still young, and much lies ahead. But the roots are strong — fed by memory, generosity, and a belief that music, given care, will always find a way to grow.
