Ensemble Échappée at Constellation Symposium: Music and the Land

Listening Pilgrimage project and a few thoughts on sensing our part in the bigger picture

In October, Ensemble Échappée spent five days as Ensemble in Residence at the inaugural Constellation Symposium: Music and the Land. There, with historical instruments, and philosopher-in-residence Valentin Gerlier, we dug into Romantic ways of listening and, mentored by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, performed a 19th century transcription of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6. We brought Beethoven into conversation with John Cage’s “But what about the noise of crumpling paper…”, and found ourselves aware of a larger dialogue with the trees and water and other inhabitants of the patch of land now known as Springhead Trust.

The question at the heart of the Listening Pilgrimage project is one that has already occupied me for over a decade: what is the difference between hearing and listening, and how do we as musicians invite the kind of listening that brings us, and our audiences, closer to music’s essence?

We often think of listening as a passive, linear act: sound goes in the ear. But true listening is active and complex. It has many layers: zooming in on a single detail, then out to the full atmosphere. It is anticipation and reflection in the same moment. We can listen to, listen with, or listen from a place. Listening becomes a form of relationship.

Rehearsing Beethoven and John Cage in the setting of Springhead Trust was a rare and precious experience that continues to resonate. Many thanks to John Eliot and Gwyneth Wentink for their trust and support of this project.

This video captures a glimpse of our performance as part of the extraordinary day of ideas that was the Constellation Symposium (Cage with the assistance of the mill-pond and gardening tools at 3:28!)

January 2026